Trump Assassination Attempts: Shootings, Plots, and Reforms

Donald Trump has survived three direct attacks since July 2024, plus an armed intrusion at Mar-a-Lago and a series of separately prosecuted Iranian-linked plots, making the attempts on his life one of the defining security stories of modern American politics. A gunman grazed his ear at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally. A second man set up a sniper’s nest at his Florida golf course. A third opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Each incident is at a different stage of the legal process, and each has exposed failures that congressional investigators called preventable.

Butler, Pennsylvania: July 13, 2024

Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, fired eight rounds from the roof of the American Glass Research building at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds, roughly 443 feet from the rally stage. One of the rounds struck Trump in the right ear.¹

Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old former volunteer fire chief, was killed shielding his family. David Dutch, 57, was shot in the stomach. James Copenhaver, 74, was shot twice and needed emergency surgery.² A Secret Service counter-sniper killed Crooks on the rooftop. Trump, bleeding from his ear, stood and shouted “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as agents escorted him away.³

Crooks was a registered Republican who had made a $15 donation to the liberal fundraising platform ActBlue in 2021.⁴ The FBI described his planning as a “sustained, detailed effort.” His search history included “How far was Oswald from Kennedy,” “Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show,” and over 60 searches related to President Biden and former President Trump in the 30 days before the attack. Investigators also found an improvised explosive device in his vehicle.¹

After nearly 1,000 interviews and hundreds of hours of footage, the FBI has not established a motive. The case remains open and is classified as both an assassination attempt and potential domestic terrorism.⁵

What the Secret Service Got Wrong

Multiple congressional investigations concluded the shooting was preventable. The Secret Service and local law enforcement held conflicting assumptions about who would secure the building Crooks used as his firing position, and nobody did.⁶ A suspicious man with a rangefinder was reported at least 25 minutes before shots were fired. The information never reached the agents responsible for keeping Trump off the stage.⁷

Agencies did not share radio frequencies and relied on cell phones. The Pittsburgh field office’s special agent in charge had no radio because he had lent his to another agent whose radio was broken. A counter-drone system was offline for hours, so the Secret Service missed a drone Crooks flew over the site at 3:51 p.m. Crooks climbed onto the roof at 6:05 p.m. and opened fire at 6:11 p.m.⁶ A Department of Homeland Security review concluded the agency “does not perform at the elite levels needed to discharge its critical mission” and called it “bureaucratic, complacent, and static.”⁸

Director Kimberly Cheatle testified before the House Oversight Committee on July 22, 2024, and resigned the next day, writing to staff that she took “full responsibility for the security lapse.”⁹ The Senate investigation later found Cheatle had given false testimony by claiming no asset requests had been denied for the Butler rally.⁷ Six agents were eventually suspended for between 10 and 42 days. None were fired. The security room agent who failed to pass along the warning about Crooks retired in June 2025 after the agency determined he had not violated policy.¹⁰ Sean Curran, who had led Trump’s protective detail during the attack, became the 28th director of the Secret Service on January 22, 2025.¹¹

In June 2026, Dutch and Copenhaver filed federal lawsuits against the United States, alleging that Secret Service negligence made the government liable for their injuries. Each seeks a minimum of $150,000 in damages.¹²

West Palm Beach Golf Course: September 15, 2024

Two months after Butler, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh set up along the fence line of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. He had an SKS rifle with a scope aimed toward the sixth green, about 126 feet away, with steel armor plates and a camera fixed to the fence.¹³

A Secret Service agent clearing one hole ahead of Trump saw Routh’s partially obscured face and a rifle barrel through the fence. The agent fired, and Routh fled.¹⁴ A civilian witness recorded Routh’s license plate, and law enforcement stopped him on Interstate 95 shortly afterward. Investigators recovered the rifle, 20 rounds of ammunition, armor plates, and a camera. In his vehicle they found a handwritten letter addressed “Dear World” that read: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you.” A separate letter offered $150,000 to anyone who would “finish the job.”¹³

Routh voted for Trump in 2016 but later wrote in a 2023 self-published book that he had “misjudged and made a terrible mistake,” calling the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach a “catastrophe perpetrated by Donald Trump.” He also suggested Iranian officials were “free to assassinate Trump.”¹⁵ His criminal record included a 2002 felony conviction for possessing a fully automatic machine gun after an armed standoff with police in Greensboro, North Carolina.¹⁶

Routh was indicted on five federal counts, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate. He represented himself at trial with public defenders on standby. On September 23, 2025, after a two-and-a-half-week proceeding, a jury of seven women and five men convicted him on all counts after roughly two and a half hours of deliberation. Upon hearing the verdict, Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen before deputy U.S. Marshals restrained him.¹⁷ On February 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon sentenced him to life in prison plus 84 months, calling him an “evil” man. His defense announced plans to appeal, arguing he should not have been allowed to represent himself.¹⁸

Mar-a-Lago Perimeter Breach: February 22, 2026

At roughly 1:30 a.m. on February 22, 2026, 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of Cameron, North Carolina, entered the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago through the north gate while another vehicle was exiting. He carried a shotgun and a fuel can. Ordered to drop them, he set down the can but raised the shotgun into firing position. Two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy opened fire and killed him at the scene.¹⁹

Trump was in Washington at the White House Governors Dinner that night.²⁰ Martin had been reported missing by his family days earlier, who described him as a quiet person who was “afraid of guns.” A box for the shotgun was found in his car, suggesting he may have bought it during his drive south. No motive has been identified, and the FBI’s investigation is ongoing.¹⁹

White House Correspondents’ Dinner Attack: April 25, 2026

Shortly after 8:30 p.m. on April 25, 2026, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, sprinted through a security magnetometer at the Washington Hilton and fired a 12-gauge Mossberg Maverick 88 shotgun at a Secret Service agent, hitting the officer in the chest. The agent survived because of a ballistic vest and returned fire. Allen was subdued and arrested before reaching the ballroom, where Trump and Vice President JD Vance were attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.²¹

Authorities recovered a .38 caliber pistol, additional ammunition, two knives, four daggers, and various tools from Allen. A manifesto emailed to his family minutes before the attack described rage toward the Trump administration and said he “wanted to target administration officials” ranked “from highest-ranking to lowest.” He called himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin.”²² He had donated $25 to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign in October 2024 and belonged to an activist network called “The Wide Awakes.”²³

A federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment charging Allen with attempting to assassinate the president, assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, transporting a firearm in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.²¹ Allen pleaded not guilty on May 11, 2026, and remains in federal custody. His defense team has moved to disqualify U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from the case. No trial date has been set.²⁴

Iranian-Linked Plots

Separate from the physical attacks, the Justice Department has prosecuted several individuals in connection with Iranian plots to kill Trump. In November 2024, prosecutors unsealed a criminal complaint against Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan national described as an asset of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was allegedly directed in September 2024 to “surveil and ultimately kill” Trump. Shakeri remains at large and is believed to be in Iran. Two co-defendants, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt, pleaded guilty in January 2026 in connection with a related plot to assassinate an Iranian-American dissident in New York, and Rivera was sentenced to 15 years in prison.²⁵

Asif Raza Merchant was separately charged with attempted murder-for-hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries. His trial began in late February 2026 in the Eastern District of New York. Federal prosecutors have not linked the Iranian plots to either the Butler or West Palm Beach attacks. The leader of the IRGC unit behind the plots was reportedly killed during joint U.S.-Israeli military strikes, according to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.²⁵

Reforms Since the Attacks

A bipartisan House Task Force released its final report on December 10, 2024, with 11 recommendations covering agent experience, training for non-Secret Service personnel, and a full review of the agency’s budget, staffing, and retention.²⁶

The Secret Service Transfer Act of 2026, introduced by Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Russell Fry, would remove the Secret Service from the Department of Homeland Security and move it into the Executive Office of the President. It was referred to the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees in May 2026.²⁷ Rep. Ritchie Torres introduced the Focus on Protection Act, which would move financial-crimes investigations to the Treasury Department so the Secret Service can concentrate on protection, and the AR-15 Perimeter Security Enhancement Act, which would require security perimeters to match the firing range of weapons likely used in assassination attempts and require that rooftops and elevated positions within those perimeters be secured.²⁸

Of the 46 reform recommendations issued by congressional oversight committees, the Secret Service reported as of mid-2025 that 21 had been implemented and 16 were in progress. Comperatore’s family has said no one from the federal government contacted them after the initial aftermath, and they called the agency’s disciplinary response insufficient.²⁹

1
ABC News. FBI Gives Update on Motive Mystery in Trump Assassination Attempt
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BBC News. Corey Comperatore and Injuries to Rally Attendees
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Real Instituto Elcano. Near Miss: Assessing the Impact on the Election of the Trump Assassination Attempt
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BBC News. FBI Investigation Into Thomas Matthew Crooks
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FBI. Butler Investigation Updates
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Lawfare. How the Secret Service Failed to Prevent a Trump Assassination Attempt
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Senate HSGAC. Chairman Rand Paul Releases Final Report Detailing Secret Service Failures
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ABC News. Secret Service Agents Suspended After Trump Assassination Attempt
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CNBC. Secret Service Director Resigns After Trump Shooting
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Senate HSGAC. USSS Chairman Final Report
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U.S. Secret Service. Director Sean M. Curran
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Politico. Trump Butler Shooting Lawsuit
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CNN. Ryan Routh Trump Assassination Attempt Sentencing
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U.S. Department of Justice. Ryan Wesley Routh Sentenced to Life in Prison
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BBC News. Ryan Wesley Routh Background
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NPR. Trump Shooting Assassination Attempt Suspect Ryan Wesley Routh
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NBC News. Ryan Routh Verdict in Trump Assassination Attempt
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The Hill. Ryan Routh Trump Assassination Attempt Life Sentence
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PBS NewsHour. Secret Service Says Armed Man Shot and Killed After Entering Mar-a-Lago Secure Perimeter
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NBC News. Law Enforcement Shoots and Kills Man at Mar-a-Lago
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U.S. Department of Justice. Indictment Charges Cole Tomas Allen With Attempt to Assassinate the President
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NPR. Cole Allen Suspected White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooter Profile
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NBC News. Shooting Suspect at White House Correspondents’ Dinner Cole Tomas Allen
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CourtListener. United States v. Allen Docket
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Just the News. IRGC Leader Behind Trump Assassination Plot Killed
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Lawfare. House Releases Final Report on Trump Assassination Attempts
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U.S. Congress. H.R. 8702 – Secret Service Transfer Act of 2026
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Rep. Ritchie Torres. Rep. Ritchie Torres Introduces Two Pieces of Legislation Reforming the Secret Service
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CBS News. Secret Service Failures at Trump Rally Shooting