According to sources, the Secret Service’s mistakes during the assassination attempt are similar to those in the hidden January 6 report

Communication errors by the U.S. Secret Service on January 6, 2021, detailed in a still-secret inspector general report, could be directly linked to mistakes made on July 13 in the lead-up to the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump, congressional sources told Blaze News.

The Jan. 6 report by Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari was submitted for review in April but is being held in the office of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a senior congressional aide told Blaze News on condition of anonymity. The Secret Service is part of DHS.

“They don’t want to get it out. They don’t want to make it public. They don’t like the conclusions,” the source said. “And that was before this (the shooting) happened.”

Before it was sent to Mayorkas, the Jan. 6 report from the Office of Inspector General was reviewed by Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, the source said. The OIG’s Jan. 6 investigation has been ongoing for more than three years.

“That January 6 report that we’ve been waiting for from the IG has a series of recommendations,” the source said. “It addresses the Secret Service’s failures on January 6. One of the recommendations directly addressed what happened on Saturday.”

The source had not read a copy of the Jan. 6 OIG report, but had its contents described by officials familiar with its development. The connection between the report and communications failures on July 13 is one possible link.

Another senior congressional staffer said communications problems could link the Jan. 6 OIG report to the tragedy at Trump’s rally at the Butler Farm Show Inc. fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“I believe the recommendation that links J6 to J13 is the USSS’s inexplicably inconsistent and inefficient communications structure with other agencies,” the source told Blaze News on condition of anonymity.

Blaze News reached out to the Homeland Security OIG and Secretary Mayorkas’ office for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Cuffari’s office has opened three investigations into the attempted assassination, including one into the readiness of the anti-sniper team and two others into the process for securing the Trump site and determining the extent to which the agency’s work “ensures the safety and security of designated protected persons,” according to the OIG website.

“Our Secret Service sniper, from a much greater distance and with just one bullet, took the assassin’s life.”

On July 13, just after 6:11 p.m., Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle on former President Trump, hitting him in the right ear, sending the Secret Service into a panic to protect Trump and remove him from the stage.

Crooks climbed onto the roof of Building 6 of the American Glass Research manufacturing complex, just north of the fairgrounds. Although witnesses near the building saw him crawl onto the roof with his rifle, that information did not appear to have reached the Secret Service agents guarding Trump during his truncated speech.

Crooks fired shots into the stage and surrounding area. Retired volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, Pennsylvania, was killed while shielding his family from the gunfire. Two other rallygoers were seriously wounded by Crooks’s hail of bullets.

Key questions still to be answered by the OIG, FBI and congressional committees charged with investigating the attempted murder include why Crooks was not stopped as he drew attention near the event for more than three hours. Cellphone videos posted to social media show bystanders near the AGR complex calling for police as Crooks climbed onto the gently sloping roof.

Trump’s sudden turn of his head as he pointed to a large informational graphic for the crowd ultimately saved his life. A shotgun blast aimed at the center of his head instead grazed his right ear.

Seconds after Crooks opened fire on Trump and the crowd, a police sniper fired a round nearly 500 yards away, striking the young man. Crooks suffered at least three bullet wounds, a source told Blaze News. It is not yet known which sniper struck Crooks in the head, killing him.

President Trump referenced the work of the sniper teams during his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18. His comments confirmed exclusive reporting by Blaze News a day earlier.

“There was terrible communication that day.”

“And then it all stopped,” Trump said after recounting the horror of being shot. “Our Secret Service sniper, from a much greater distance and using only one bullet, took the life of the assassin.”

Two leading experts who have served extensively in security missions around the world and who train snipers and other agents with the Secret Service and other agencies identified communications as a major problem.

Police and Secret Service radios were not on a common channel on July 13, the sources said. “There were terrible communications that day,” one of them said.

At least one of the sniper teams had Crooks in their sights, but they went into “deconfliction mode” because they expected the roof where Crooks lay with his rifle would be secured by police, the sources said.

According to the sources, an anti-sniper team was supposed to be present on the roof of Building 6 during the event, but for unknown reasons there was no one to secure the building.

The net result of the hesitation was likely more due to the attempt at “friend-or-foe” deconfliction than anything malicious, the sources said.

Local police saw Crooks crawling over a retaining wall along one side of Building 6 around 5:30 p.m. A photo of Crooks, taken by a police officer using a mast camera, drone or helicopter, was circulated to officers on the ground.

On January 6, questions were raised at the U.S. Capitol about the actions of the Secret Service before, during and after a pipe bomb was discovered at the nearby headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

According to the FBI, the would-be bomber placed the device next to a bench outside the DNC building the night before Jan. 6. The pipe bomb wasn’t discovered until 1:05 p.m. by a Capitol Police anti-surveillance agent.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris arrived at the DNC at 11:30 a.m. on January 6. Her motorcade pulled into the garage, just feet from where the pipe bomb was found more than 90 minutes later.

Surveillance video released by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) shows that in the minutes after the bomb was discovered, Secret Service agents and police officers stood in the driveway of the building and had a conversation. The agents, who were in two vehicles in the driveway, finished their lunch before emerging, Massie reported.

Questions have been raised about whether the Secret Service thoroughly searched the building with bomb-sniffing dogs before Harris arrived. An agent seen on CCTV security footage earlier in the day showed what appeared to be a bomb-sniffing dog walking around the perimeter of the building, including the area near the bomb. The dog did not detect the device.

The Secret Service deleted text messages from his phones from Jan. 5 and 6 during a “device replacement program,” Cuffari wrote in a letter to the House and Senate Homeland Security committees. The deletion came after Cuffari’s office demanded that the Secret Service use electronic communications beginning Jan. 6.

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