The U.S. Secret Service encountered multiple drone-related security incidents but did not revise its protective policies or record its reasons for leaving them unchanged, according to a government report released Thursday. Investigators suggested that such documentation could have helped clarify the growing risk posed by civilian drones before one was involved in the 2024 assassination attempt against then-candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Government Accountability Office report identified delays and gaps in the way the Secret Service reviews and updates protection policies tied to emerging threats. Its findings come after a turbulent stretch for the agency responsible for safeguarding the president and other top officials.
In Butler, the would-be assassin climbed onto an unsecured roof and fired, with a bullet grazing Trump’s ear. Months afterward, a man carrying a rifle came alarmingly close to Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach. Then in April, an armed man made it past security barriers at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where the president was seated.
According to the report, the Secret Service handled 83 security incidents between 2015 and 2025 and updated its protection policies after 25 of them. Those incidents included a drone that came into contact with President Barack Obama’s motorcade in 2015, as well as another drone that flew roughly 200 feet, or 60 meters, above a rally for then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Nathan Tranquilli, acting director of the Government Accountability Office, said the central concern was not simply that the Secret Service chose against policy changes in some cases, but that it failed to document why. The drone incidents, he said, offered a “compelling example” of the problem.
“Some of the missing information has been relevant to subsequent attacks,” the report read. It cited the Butler incident, where the culprit flew a drone for 11 minutes over the crowd, which helped him position himself to get clear shot at Trump.
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The Secret Service also failed to update eight of 22 protection policies within a required time frame of four years. A memorandum of understanding between the Secret Service and the Diplomatic Security Service, which designates each agencies’ responsibilities for the president’s overseas security, hasn’t been updated since 1991, even though an annual review and update is required. As a consequence, the memorandum doesn’t address newer threats, such as drones.
“When you look at the Secret Service and you look at their mission, really it’s a zero fail mission, and they’ve got a ton of challenges,” said Tranquilli. “When decisions were being made about where to put time and energy, some of these things fell to the side, and, as a result, there were some delays.”
The report recommended three fixes, including that the Secret Service revise its policy to require that, when a security incident doesn’t warrant a policy update, that the rationale is documented.
A spokesperson for the Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the report stated that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, agreed with all recommendations and plans to implement changes.
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