The House task force describes security failures before the first Trump assassination attempt

WASHINGTON – The Secret Service failed to properly plan and coordinate with local law enforcement ahead of former President Donald Trump's July 13 campaign rally where he was shot in an assassination attempt, a new report says.

The interim report from the House task force investigating Trump's assassination attempt that day said the first phase of the investigation “clearly demonstrates a lack of planning and coordination between the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners prior to the rally.”

Those findings, the bipartisan panel said, were based on 23 transcribed interviews with local law enforcement, thousands of pages of documents and testimony from the task force's public hearing in September, the task force said in a news release.

On the day of the rally, the task force said there were occasions when “federal, state and local law enforcement officials could have engaged Thomas Matthew Crooks at several key moments.” However, the report states that “fragmented lines of communication allowed crooks to evade law enforcement and eventually climb to the roof of the AGR complex and fire eight shots at the rally stage and crowd, killing one rally attendee and injuring three others, including former President Trump.”

A Butler Township Police Department officer told the task force that another officer helped him to the roof of the AGR complex and spotted the shooter with the gun. Crooks “pointed his firearm at my face” and had a book bag and gun magazines with him. He said he fell to the ground and immediately radioed that the suspicious person on the roof was armed.

The officer who helped his colleague onto the roof told the task force: “I'm trying to get him to the roof. He's kind of on the side, but he's up there. He comes back screaming, “THAT’S AN AR! ONE AR! A GUY WITH AN AR!'”

“To date, the task force has received no evidence that the message reached the former president's USSS team before shots were fired,” their report said.

When information about the shooter reached the Secret Service's command post, the task force said, “The hoodlums had been under surveillance by the Secret Service's state and local partners for approximately 40 minutes.”

The Secret Service did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.

The report detailed the lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies on the morning of July 13 leading up to the rally. The Butler County Emergency Services Unit, for example, held its own meeting, as did the Butler Township Police Department, but the task force said, “The Secret Service did not attend any of the meetings.” It also did not have broader briefings from the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies given, the task force said.

The task force said it is still in the process of conducting more than 20 transcribed interviews with federal officials and others who may have further information about the July 13 events. She is also investigating the alleged assassination attempt against Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15. The panel has requested information and documents from the Secret Service, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.