U.S. intelligence has handled several drone-related incidents without adjusting its protection policies or documenting why it failed to do so, according to a government report released Thursday. This information may have helped illustrate the emerging threat of civilian drone use before one was used in the 2024 assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Government Accountability Office report finds delays and gaps in the way the Secret Service updates its threat policies, and comes after a tumultuous few years for the agency tasked with protecting the president.
The suspected assassin in Butler positioned himself on an unsecured roof and wounded the president’s ear with a bullet. Months later, a man with a gun came surprisingly close to Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach. And in April, a gunman managed to breach security barriers at the White House correspondent’s dinner attended by the president.
The report found that the Secret Service handled 83 security incidents between 2015 and 2025 and updated its protection policies in response to 25 of them. The incidents included a drone that made contact with President Barack Obama’s motorcade in 2015 and another that flew about 200 feet (60 meters) above a rally for then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
The failure to document why the Secret Service decided not to change its policy is troubling, said Nathan Tranquilli, acting director of the Government Accountability Office, adding that the drone incidents are a “compelling example” of that.
“Some of the missing information was relevant to subsequent attacks,” the report said. It cited the Butler incident, in which the perpetrator flew a drone over the crowd for 11 minutes, helping him position himself to fire unhindered at Trump.
The Secret Service also failed to update eight of 22 protection policies within the required four-year time frame. A memorandum of understanding between the Secret Service and the Diplomatic Security Service defining the two agencies’ responsibilities for presidential security abroad has not been updated since 1991, although an annual review and update is required. Therefore, the memorandum does not address newer threats such as drones.
“When you look at the Secret Service and their mission, you realize it’s really a zero-defect mission, and they face a lot of challenges,” Tranquilli said. “When decisions were made about where to invest time and energy, some of these things were left out and as a result there were some delays.”
The report recommended three fixes, including revising the Secret Service’s policy to require that the justification be documented when a security incident does not warrant a policy update.
A Secret Service spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the report said the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, agreed with all recommendations and plans to implement changes.