Senator demands to know why no one has been fired at Secret Service

Question

A high-profile hearing descended into chaos when Sen. Josh Hawley pressed acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe on why no one had been fired for the security breach at Donald Trump's Butler, Pa. rally yet. 

On July 13 Thomas Crooks fired eight rounds toward Trump from a nearby unsecured rooftop, killing firefighter veteran Corey Comperatore, critically injuring two and grazing Trump with a bullet in his ear. 

Acting Director Rowe and Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate testified in a rare joint Senate hearing on Tuesday, after a disastrous hearing last week with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle prompted her resignation.

They faced rounds of questioning on why Trump had been allowed to take the stage despite Crooks being identified as a suspicious person a full 90 minutes before he fired any shots.  

'Has the person who decided, who made the decision to send Donald Trump on stage knowing that you had a security situation. Has that person been relieved of duty?' Hawley, R-Mo., asked. 

'No sir they haven't,' said Rowe.

'Has the person who decided not to pull the former president off of stage when you knew that in your words, the locals were working a serious security situation? Has that person been relieved of duty?'




A high-profile hearing descended into chaos when Sen. Josh Hawley pressed acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe on why no one had been fired for the security breach yet





'Has the person who decided, who made the decision to send Donald Trump on stage knowing that you had a security situation. Has that person been relieved of duty?' Hawley, R-Mo., asked. 'No sir they haven't,' said Rowe

'No, sir. Again, I refer you back to my original answer that we are investigating this through a mission assurance—' Rowe said. 

'—What more do you need to investigate? To know exactly what you need to investigate to know the failures that something ought to be held accountable? What more do you need to know?' Hawley interjected. 

'You're asking me, Senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing. I acknowledge this was a failure,' Rowe went on. 

'Sir, this could have been our Texas School Book Depository,' he said, in reference to the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald fatally shot President John F. Kennedy. 

'I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days. I will tell you Senator, that I will not rush a judgment, that people will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people unfairly persecuted. We have to be able to have a proper investigation into this.'






In another fraught moment Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked Rowe whether Trump's team had been given the same amount of protection resources as a comparable Biden event. 

'You're using president a way that it's not clear. Is it your testimony that in Butler Pennsylvania, Donald Trump had the same number of agents protecting him that Joe Biden has at a comparable event? 

'You asked me senator and I'm trying to answer it.' 

'You are not answering it. Is it the same number of agents or not?' Cruz went on. 

'There is a difference between the sitting President of the United States,' Rowe shot back. 'What's the difference?' 

'The difference is an actual authority to launch a nuclear strike,' said Rowe. 

But Rowe confusingly also said that Trump had the same number of agents surrounding him as Joe Biden has, a 'full shift.' 

Rowe admitted he had no defense as for why the rooftop where Thomas Matthew Crooks fired shots toward former President Trump was left open. 

Crooks fired eight rounds toward Trump from a nearby unsecured rooftop, killing firefighter veteran Corey Comperatore, critically injuring two and grazing Trump with a bullet in his ear. 

'I went to the roof of the AGR building where the assailant fired shots, THPT (https://lambangcapgiarenhat.com) and I laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. What I saw made me ashamed as a career law enforcement officer and a 25 year veteran with the Secret Service. I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured,' he told Congress on Tuesday. 

'When I laid in that position I could not, will not understand why there was not better coverage or at least somebody looking at that roof line when that's where they were posted,' Rowe said, noting that Crooks' head would have been clearly visible from the unmanned rooftop. 

Cheatle had been criticized for not visiting the rally site prior to her hearing on Capitol Hill last week, which prompted her resignation. 

Thirty seconds before Crooks fired his shots, local law enforcement had radioed to Secret Service warning about a man with a rifle on the roof. Around three and a half minutes before that, he'd been 'observed on the roof.' 








Acting Director Rowe and Deputy Secret Service Director Paul Abbate testified in a rare joint Senate hearing on Tuesday


Trump assassination attempt timeline, according to Secret Service acting director

July 7: Crooks travels to rally site to spend 20 minutes doing reconnaissance 

July 12: Shooter visits Clairton Sportsmen's Club to practice shooting

July 13, 10 a.m.: Shooter visits rally site again 

90 minutes before shooting: local law enforcement 'suspicious' of Crooks

20 minutes before Trump takes stage, 30 minutes before shooting: Secret Service made aware of an individual with a rangefinder

10 minutes before Trump takes stage, 20 minutes before shooting: Secret Service counter sniper team given photograph of the 'suspicious subject'

3.5 minutes before shooting: Crooks spotted on the roof  

30 seconds before shooting: Crooks seen with a gun



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Law enforcement 'should've been on that roof and the fact that they were in the building is something that I'm still trying to understand,' Rowe said when Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., pressed him on whistleblower reports that law enforcement was supposed to be stationed on the roof but was not up there because it was 'too hot.'

Abbate revealed that the FBI had identified a social media account they believed belonged to the shooter 

'In about the 2019, 2020 time frame, there were over 700 comments posted from this account. Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature,' Abbate said. 

Rowe said that since the shooting he'd implemented a number of changes at the Secret Service, including having security plans go through multiple supervisors before implementation, expanded use of drones, more resources for protective site communications and 'expeditious' approval of requests for personnel at protective sites with heightened security environments. 

Rowe and Abbate spoke to the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees after their boss, Cheatle submitted her resignation last week after a six-hour-long hearing where Republicans and Democrats accused her of stonewalling. 

In his opening statement the Homeland Security Committee's top Republican  Rand Paul revealed that local law enforcement had told his office they'd warned the Secret Service about the vulnerabilities of the rooftop where Thomas Matthew Crooks fired shots at the president.

'Local law enforcement told my staff that they specifically flagged the vulnerability of the building to the Secret Service, and were told that it would be taken care of. Clearly, these vulnerabilities were not addressed.