‘Ashamed’: Acting Secret Service director testifies on ‘failures’ that led to Trump assassination attempt
The Secret Service‘s acting director testified on Tuesday, testified to lapse of judgement for not securing a roof used by a gunman in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump before Senate Judiciary committee . The director addressed specific failures, including the lack of urgent information circulation and inadequate scene protection, which contributed to the incident.
During the testimony, the acting director Ronald Rowe Jr revealed that he visited the shooting site and said, “What I saw made me ashamed.” He also called it a “failure on multiple levels,” including a ‘failure of imagination’.
“We assumed that the state and locals had it,” the acting director said. “We made an assumption that there was going to be uniformed presence out there, that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be counter-sniper teams in the building from whose roof Crooks fired shots, less than 150 yards (135 meters) from the rally stage where Trump was speaking. And I can assure you that we’re not going to make that mistake again.”
In the attempted assassination, Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was struck in the ear by a bullet or fragment, resulting in one fatality and two other injuries among rallygoers before the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
The hearing revealed deep frustrations and combative exchanges, with the acting director taking a different approach than his predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, who had resigned the previous week. Cheatle had faced bipartisan criticism for her vague responses during her testimony.
The focus of the session was the lack of timely information received by the Secret Service about Crooks being on the roof. Local law enforcement officers had noticed Crooks, described as suspicious, but lost track of him before he ascended a building’s roof. A local officer who checked the roof saw Crooks with a rifle but retreated without relaying this information effectively.
“No information regarding a weapon on a roof was ever passed to our personnel,” Rowe said. “It is troubling to me that we did not get that information as quickly as we should have. We didn’t know that there was this incident going on.”
The criticism of local law enforcement by the acting director drew strong reactions from Senate Republicans, accusing him of not taking sufficient responsibility for the incident.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, questioned, “Isn’t it the fact that the 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 to the person who decided that that building should not be the security perimeter, probably ought to be stepped down?”
In response, the acting director, with heightened said, “I have lost sleep over this for the last 17 days and that he would not be rushed to judgment by Congress, but he assured lawmakers that people will be held accountable.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, remarked that in the military, significant failures would result in numerous firings. “Nothing’s going to change until somebody loses their job,” he added.
However, Rowe refused to “rush to judgement” and promised to get to the bottom of the issue that lead to lapse in security. “You’re asking me, senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing,” Rowe said.”This was a failure and we will get to the bottom of it,” he added.
During the session, Deputy Director of the FBI Paul Abbate added new information about Crooks. According to Abbate, Crooks had a social media account advocating political violence, antisemitism, and anti-immigrant views. These posts were from 2019 and 2020 when Crooks was in high school.
The FBI had also indicated that Crooks had researched mass shootings, power plants, improvised explosive devices, and the May assassination attempt of the Slovakian prime minister. Additionally, Trump agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as a victim of the crime, scheduled for Thursday. The former president had appeared in public events following the shooting with a bandage on his right ear.
The Secret Service acting director’s predecessor, Cheatle, during her testimony, had labeled the Secret Service’s failure to protect Trump as the most significant operational failure in decades. She expressed a commitment to uncovering the reasons behind the failure to prevent a recurrence.
She acknowledged receiving multiple reports about a suspicious person before the shooting and identified that the roof from which Crooks fired had been marked as a potential vulnerability before the rally.
Trump, in a Fox News interview, defended the Secret Service agents who protected him but criticized the lack of roof surveillance and coordination with local police. “They didn’t speak to each other,” he said.
Trump praised the sniper who neutralized Crooks, calling the shot “amazing,” but also observed, “It would have been good if it was nine seconds sooner.”
During the testimony, the acting director Ronald Rowe Jr revealed that he visited the shooting site and said, “What I saw made me ashamed.” He also called it a “failure on multiple levels,” including a ‘failure of imagination’.
“We assumed that the state and locals had it,” the acting director said. “We made an assumption that there was going to be uniformed presence out there, that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be counter-sniper teams in the building from whose roof Crooks fired shots, less than 150 yards (135 meters) from the rally stage where Trump was speaking. And I can assure you that we’re not going to make that mistake again.”
In the attempted assassination, Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was struck in the ear by a bullet or fragment, resulting in one fatality and two other injuries among rallygoers before the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
The hearing revealed deep frustrations and combative exchanges, with the acting director taking a different approach than his predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, who had resigned the previous week. Cheatle had faced bipartisan criticism for her vague responses during her testimony.
The focus of the session was the lack of timely information received by the Secret Service about Crooks being on the roof. Local law enforcement officers had noticed Crooks, described as suspicious, but lost track of him before he ascended a building’s roof. A local officer who checked the roof saw Crooks with a rifle but retreated without relaying this information effectively.
“No information regarding a weapon on a roof was ever passed to our personnel,” Rowe said. “It is troubling to me that we did not get that information as quickly as we should have. We didn’t know that there was this incident going on.”
The criticism of local law enforcement by the acting director drew strong reactions from Senate Republicans, accusing him of not taking sufficient responsibility for the incident.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, questioned, “Isn’t it the fact that the 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 to the person who decided that that building should not be the security perimeter, probably ought to be stepped down?”
In response, the acting director, with heightened said, “I have lost sleep over this for the last 17 days and that he would not be rushed to judgment by Congress, but he assured lawmakers that people will be held accountable.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, remarked that in the military, significant failures would result in numerous firings. “Nothing’s going to change until somebody loses their job,” he added.
However, Rowe refused to “rush to judgement” and promised to get to the bottom of the issue that lead to lapse in security. “You’re asking me, senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing,” Rowe said.”This was a failure and we will get to the bottom of it,” he added.
During the session, Deputy Director of the FBI Paul Abbate added new information about Crooks. According to Abbate, Crooks had a social media account advocating political violence, antisemitism, and anti-immigrant views. These posts were from 2019 and 2020 when Crooks was in high school.
The FBI had also indicated that Crooks had researched mass shootings, power plants, improvised explosive devices, and the May assassination attempt of the Slovakian prime minister. Additionally, Trump agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as a victim of the crime, scheduled for Thursday. The former president had appeared in public events following the shooting with a bandage on his right ear.
The Secret Service acting director’s predecessor, Cheatle, during her testimony, had labeled the Secret Service’s failure to protect Trump as the most significant operational failure in decades. She expressed a commitment to uncovering the reasons behind the failure to prevent a recurrence.
She acknowledged receiving multiple reports about a suspicious person before the shooting and identified that the roof from which Crooks fired had been marked as a potential vulnerability before the rally.
Trump, in a Fox News interview, defended the Secret Service agents who protected him but criticized the lack of roof surveillance and coordination with local police. “They didn’t speak to each other,” he said.
Trump praised the sniper who neutralized Crooks, calling the shot “amazing,” but also observed, “It would have been good if it was nine seconds sooner.”
