WASHINGTON – The acting director of the Secret Service said Thursday that the agency is “reorganizing and reimagining” its culture and how it operates following an assassination attempt against Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
Members of a bipartisan House task force investigating the attempt on Trump's life pushed Ronald Rowe on how the agency’s staffers could have missed such blatant security vulnerabilities leading up to the July 13 shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. At one point, the hearing devolved into a shouting match between Rowe and a Republican congressman.
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Rowe promised accountability for what he called the agency’s “abject failure” to secure the rally in Butler, where a gunman opened fire from a nearby building. Trump was wounded in the ear, one rallygoer was killed and two others were wounded.
Another assassination attempt two months later contributed to the agency’s troubles. That gunman waited for hours for Trump to appear at his golf course in Florida, but a Secret Service agent thwarted the attack by spotting the firearm poking through bushes.
The task force has been investigating both attempts, but it was the July shooting that dominated Thursday’s hearing. Its inquiry is one of a series of investigations and reports that have faulted the agency for planning and communications failures. The agency’s previous director resigned, and the Secret Service increased protections for Trump before the Republican won the November election.
Rowe was repeatedly asked by flabbergasted lawmakers how problems so obvious in hindsight were allowed to happen.
Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, said it was “just wild to me” that at a time of tech advances, the Secret Service was using text messages and emails to communicate in real time about threats.
He also asked Rowe why so many things went wrong that day “yet nobody said anything.”
Rowe said the agency used to have a culture where people felt comfortable speaking up.
“I don’t know where we lost that,” he said. “We have to get back to that.”
Rowe said the agency is putting a much stronger emphasis on training — something previous investigations found was lacking — and on doing more regular reviews of events to see what went right and where improvements can be made.
“We are reorganizing and reimaging this organization," Rowe told lawmakers. He said the agency needs to identify possible leaders much earlier in their careers instead of just promoting people to command positions because they have been around a long time.
The hearing was largely cordial, with members of Congress stressing the bipartisan nature of their work and praising Rowe for cooperating with their investigation even as they pushed him for explanations.
But at one point, Rowe and Rep. Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican, faced off — shouting over each other as other members pleaded for order.
Fallon pulled out a photo of President Joe Biden, Trump and others at this year's Sept. 11 ceremony in New York and asked Rowe why he was at the event, suggesting it was to burnish his prospects at getting the director job permanently. Trump has not yet named his pick to lead the agency.
“I was there to show respect for a Secret Service member that died on 9/11. Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes!” Rowe shouted.
“You wanted to be visible because you were auditioning for this job that you’re not going to get!” Fallon later shot back.
Rowe roared back: "You are out of line, Congressman. You are out of line!”
“You're a bully,” Fallon said.
This was the task force’s second public hearing and the first time that Rowe has addressed its members in public. The panel has until Dec. 13 to release its final report.
Rep. Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, said the agency’s conduct during the July shooting seemed almost “lackadaisical.” He said some of the issues that went wrong that day were ”really basic things.”
“It speaks of an apathy or a complacency that is really unacceptable in an organization like the Secret Service,” Green said.
The task force conducted 46 transcribed interviews, attended over a dozen briefings and reviewed over 20,000 documents. Members also visited the site of both assassination attempts and went to the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, to look at evidence.
Rowe said Thursday that the agency's internal investigation, whose findings were released last month, identified failures by multiple employees. He noted that the quality of the advance work — the people who scope out event locations ahead of time — did not meet agency standards. He vowed accountability for those who fell down on the job.
Many of the investigations have centered on why buildings near the rally with a clear line of sight to the stage where Trump was speaking were not secured in advance. The gunman, Thomas Crooks, climbed onto the roof of one of them and opened fire before being killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
Rowe pointed to the failure to protect the building as the most glaring oversight that day.
He also was asked about the morale of agents and new hires. Rowe said applications are actually up this year — the agency made a net gain of about 200 agents during the past fiscal year, meaning both new agents were hired and veteran agents retained.