Let me be absolutely clear: the assassination attempt on President Trump was a catastrophic failure on the part of the United States Secret Service.

I spent 12 years in the Secret Service working under President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, and, after analyzing the footage, it’s clear that glaring mistakes were made. Mistakes that — had Trump’s head been just centimeters in the wrong direction — would have resulted in the former president bleeding out on national television. 

As I see it, there are three central problems plaguing the Secret Service Agency which contributed to the nearly successful assassination attempt on Trump and will impact future investigations into the matter:

The first issue is a lack of manpower and security equipment. 

How is it that multiple layers of law enforcement missed a man scaling the roof of a building less than 500 feet from the president? And why didn’t the security personnel heed the warnings of rally-goers who were caught on video alerting agents to the shooter? 

If the shooter on the roof was clearly visible to attendees on the ground, then he should have been visible to the security team on the ground.

Here’s what I can tell you. Security personnel close to former President Trump reached out to me long before the assassination attempt to tell me Trump’s security team had repeatedly requested a larger security footprint but they were repeatedly rebuffed.

Everything we know about the Trump assassination attempt

• 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the shooter who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
• Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents.
• The gunman grazed Trump’s ear, killed a 50-year-old retired fire chief, and injured two other rally-goers.
• Investigators detailed Crooks’ search history to lawmakers, revealing that he looked for the dates of Trump’s appearances and the Democratic National Convention.
• Crooks’ search history also revealed a broad interest in high-profile people and celebrities, regardless of their political affiliation, FBI officials reportedly said.
• Trump exclusively recounted surviving the “surreal” assassination attempt with The Post at the rally, remarking, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
• High-profile politicians, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, addressed the nation about the shooting, calling it “a heinous, horrible and cowardly act.”

When I went public with this information, USSS Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi claimed Sunday that the “assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed” by the agency “is absolutely false.”

Someone is lying and between Guglielmi and my source, I trust my source. 

Guglielmi also said the agency “added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.” What enhancements — drone? Infrared? Is this the best you can do for the former and likely future president of the United States? I’ve seen better security technology at a Turning Point USA conference (no joke). 

Don’t tell me it’s a budgetary issue. This year’s federal budget is $6.9 trillion. The federal government squanders inconceivable amounts of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars. The government has more than enough taxpayer funding to protect former President Trump. 

Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest on the assassination attempt of former President Trump

Here’s the hard reality: you can’t blame inadequate funding for incompetent and corrupt management.

This brings me to problem number two — failed leadership.

In 2023, Biden-appointed Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle committed to guaranteeing that 30% of the SSA’s recruits are women by 2030.

These numbers can only be achieved by Cheatle by trading merit for quotas, and therefore lowering the quality of personnel. Understand that DEI quotas are always unfair, but when they’re deployed in the Secret Service, people will get hurt.

Cheatle should immediately resign and cooperate in any investigation into her actions. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chair Rep. James Comer has called on Cheatle to testify at a hearing on Monday, July 22. Good.

There should be full federal and congressional investigations done by people with the highest integrity. Unfortunately, integrity has been hard to come by the current management of the FBI — the agency tasked with investigating the assassination attempt. 

This is the third issue — the politicization of an agency that necessitates, arguably above all others, political neutrality.

Show your pride with our masthead flag items!

One of the finest agents I worked with while in the Secret Service once told me, “An uneventful failure is not a success,” and this is the worst kind of uneventful failure.

A would-be assassin nearly killed President Trump, did murder an innocent MAGA supporter, and critically injured two other rallygoers. This was no victory. 

Any spokesperson or talking head who overlooks the glaring mistakes made Saturday or who tries to paint the assassination attempt as a Secret Service success story is lying through their teeth and does not deserve your attention or respect. 

The Secret Service’s motto is “Worthy of Trust and Confidence.”

After this major security failure, trust and confidence have been lost. I believe in the Secret Service Agency, and I believe there’s always time for redemption. But it’s going to take serious reform within a rotting agency before the public begins to believe in the SSA’s motto again. 

Dan Bongino, a US Secret Service agent from 1999 to 2011, is host of “The Dan Bongino Show.”