Watching today’s questions from senators meet less-than-adequate answers from the current acting head of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe – the former deputy director – one has to wonder if the leadership of the Secret Service is simply riddled with so much buck-passing, ass-covering, and finger-pointing that everyone should just be fired right now.

To his credit, Rowe acted much more human and much more upset than former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle did during her testimony to the House Oversight Committee regarding the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. But that was a low bar to clear. Rowe had the task of explaining to some of the sharper minds on the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees. Also there was FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, but most of the harsh questioning was aimed at Rowe, since it was the Secret Service who has the most to answer for in this investigation.

Rowe, at least, started out strong in his opening statement.

Rowe told lawmakers from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee that he visited the site after the disastrous security failure, including the rooftop from which the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle.

“What I saw made me ashamed,” Rowe said. He became the acting director of the agency a week ago, following the resignation of Kimberly Cheatle under pressure from lawmakers and others. Rowe previously served as deputy director of the Secret Service, responsible for overseeing daily investigative and protective operations.

Raising his voice in frustration, Rowe showed lawmakers photos of the rooftop, near where officials have said local law enforcement officers were posted.

“I cannot understand why there was not better coverage” of that roof, Rowe said. “I think this was a failure of imagination, a failure to imagine that we actually do live in a very dangerous world where people do actually want to do harm to our protectees. I think it was a failure to challenge our own assumptions.”

Rowe said the Secret Service assumed there would be “sufficient eyes” from local law enforcement covering the outer perimeter of the rally, including countersniper teams in the AGR building from which the shooter fired.

“We assumed that the state and locals had it,” Rowe said in response to questioning from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). “I can assure you that we’re not going to make that mistake again.”

However, Rowe comes with some problems of his own. Susan Crabtree, investigative reporter for Real Clear Politics, has been digging deeply into the failures of the the Secret Service, and reported today that it was Rowe himself who was responsible for denying Trump’s security detail additional resources.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe was directly involved in denying additional security resources and personnel, including counter snipers, to former President Trump’s rallies and events – despite repeated requests by the agents assigned to Trump’s detail in the two years leading up to his July 13 attempted assassination, according to several sources familiar with the decision-making.

It was Rowe’s decision alone to deny counter sniper teams to any Trump event outside of driving distance from D.C., these sources asserted.

At first, the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania had no Secret Service sniper teams assigned to it, but at the last minute, agency officials reversed course and decided to add two snipers to the outdoor event. It’s still unclear whether there were just two counter snipers or two two-man teams for a total of four individuals. (Two-man teams usually include one spotter and one sniper.)

So far, there has been no explanation as to why agency officials made the late counter sniper assignments to the Butler event, though it could be in response to the increased threat level Trump has faced in recent weeks. The Secret Service has said the agency increased security for Trump for an unknown time period before the Butler rally in response to an Iranian plot against the former president.

As RCP previously reported, the late decision to add the two counter snipers cut short the time the team had to conduct a detailed on-site survey in advance of the Butler rally. Such a survey would usually take two to three days to complete, but the counter snipers had only one day to complete that critical advance work.

Sources familiar with counter sniper advance work also said an outdoor forum such as the Farm Show site in Butler should require at least three two-man counter sniper teams.

Instead, the Secret Service sent two counter snipers and then relied on a local law enforcement counter sniper team to man the American Glass Research, or AGR, building, placing that structure outside the official Secret Service perimeter.

When asked by Senator Ron Johnson about this report, Rowe denied that the buck stopped with him. Crabtree responded on X that she “stands by her sources.”
https://twitter.com/susancrabtree/status/1818307967009292796
It has now been 17 days since the assassination attempt, and the Secret Service knows exactly who did what on that day. They have the name of the agent who made the call to let Donald Trump go onstage. They know who was in operational control of the rally. They just don’t want to do anything about it yet, under the claims that the “investigation isn’t complete yet.” That was unacceptable to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), who demanded to know why no one has been fired yet, or at least suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

In one clash during aggressive questioning by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rowe said he “could not tip the scales” and said “we need to allow the investigation to play out.”

Hawley demanded the firing of a number of Secret Service personnel, from whoever approved the security plan to whoever failed to pull Trump offstage despite warnings about a suspicious person.

“Isn’t the fact that a former president was shot, that a good American is dead, that other Americans were critically wounded — isn’t that enough mission failure for you to say that the person who decided that building should not be in the security perimeter probably ought to be stepped down?” Hawley said, referencing the AGR building Thomas Matthew Crooks fired from.

Rowe said agents involved were cooperating with an internal investigation.

“I want to be neutral and make sure that we get to the bottom of it and interview everybody in order to determine if there was more than one person who perhaps exercised bad judgment,” Rowe said, adding he did not want to “zero in on one or two individuals.”

Hawley repeatedly asserted that there was “prima facia” evidence that the Secret Service failed.

“You’ve been on the job a few days so far. You’ve fired nobody,” Hawley griped.

At one point in the exchange, Rowe became emotional.

“I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days, just like you have, and I will tell you, senator, that I will not rush to judgment, that people will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people [out there to be] unfairly persecuted,” Rowe said.

“Unfairly persecuted?” Hawley responded. “We’ve got people who are dead.”

“You said earlier that you’ve got to make sure that your protocols are followed and unless there’s a protocol violation, people wouldn’t be disciplined,” Hawley said.

“I would just say to you, I don’t really care that much about your protocols.”

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) also hammered Rowe on the failures of the Secret Service, including asking who made the call initially to deny Robert F. Kennedy Jr. protection.

I am holding Secret Service leadership accountable for their catastrophic security failure. pic.twitter.com/Fu2NAqQAb4

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 30, 2024

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) also tried nailing down the biggest question – why was Donald Trump allowed to take the stage? And Senator Lee asked, would Joe Biden have been allowed to go on stage under the same circumstances? And why did local law enforcement sniper teams ABANDON their post overlooking the roof?
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1818342570121961476
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who attempted to get answers from the previous director, presented a whistleblower letter obtained by Susan Crabtree, where a Secret Service countersniper complains that leadership tied the hands of those on the ground in Butler, and asked Acting Director Rowe about it.
https://twitter.com/susancrabtree/status/1818335359576727584
The full post reads:

@MarshaBlackburn READS FROM THE EMAIL I was given exclusively this morning from a Secret Service counter sniper. That counter sniper sent the email to every employee at the agency’s Uniform Division last night.

In the email, attached below, the counter sniper, whose name I redacted, expresed deep dismay, calling for all top leaders of the Secret Service to resign or be fired, and accused agency supervisors of engaging in “CYA.”

Rowe: “I’m hurt by that email, but not in the way you think I’m saying. I’m hurt because my people are hurting right now. We need them….”

Blackburn: “Then, when did somebody delete the email?”

Rowe: “I’ll look, I’ll get back to you on that [question of why the] agency deleted the email. May I address your question, and I will get back to you as to whether the email was deleted or not.”

“My agency is hurting. Emotions are raw. I actually want to hear more from that [Uniform Division] officer, that technician in his email, he referenced that he had spent time serving our nation as a United States Marine, that he is a 20-year professional of the Secret Service. ”

Rowe then says he’s “committed to being a CHANGE AGENT.”

“I am committed to reviewing some of these things. I looked at the points in his email very quickly. I saw, as I was on my way over here this morning, I want to have further conversations, not only with him, but also [other counter snipers.]”

Here’s the devastating email the counter sniper sent last night at 10:34 p.m.

The email speaks to the collapse of morale among the Secret Service itself. Senator Cruz commended the agents who worked to get Donald Trump to safety on that day, but the failures seem to be happening at the logistical and command level. There were failures in communication, there were failures in planning, there were failures in equipment (apparently the warning by local law enforcement about the shooter once he was known to be armed did not reach the Secret Service by radio), and the assumptions made by the Secret Service that local law enforcement could cover their gaps got Corey Comperatore killed, and nearly got Donald Trump killed.

Merely replacing the head of the Secret Service with the next person in line is not going to fix the failures of July 13th. The Secret Service needs a housecleaning from top to bottom, period. Today’s hearing did not convince me, or the senators listening to this testimony, that Ronald Rowe is the right man for the job going forward.

Featured image: Acting Secret Service Director Robert Rowe, official photo from the Department of Homeland Security, cropped, public domain