Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said on Tuesday that neither the Secret Service countersniper teams nor members of former President Donald Trump‘s security detail had “any knowledge” that there was a shooter with a gun on the roof.
“It is my understanding those personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots,” Rowe said.
Senators on both the Homeland and Judiciary committees came together to hear from Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate about the agency’s “problematic communication system” and security failures that allowed a 20-year-old man to access a nearby building and take shots at the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Rowe called the assassination attempt of Trump a “failure on multiple levels” and he will “not wait for the results” of multiple federal inquiries “to assess where we failed that day.”
Rowe took over as acting director after Kimberly Cheatle resigned from the position following her lackluster testimony before the House Oversight Committee last Monday. She angered both Democrats and Republicans with her inability to share details of the shooting due to it being an “ongoing investigation.”
The acting director said he has implemented “corrective actions” to the Secret Service since stepping into the leadership role, including visiting the Butler rally site. Cheatle never visited the site, a fact for which House Oversight members blasted her.
“What I saw made me ashamed,” Rowe said regarding his view of the roof at the rally site. “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.”
The Senate hearing comes after Rowe gave a closed-door briefing on the assassination attempt to Judiciary and Homeland Security committee members on July 25.
“During the closed-door briefing, Acting Director Rowe was committed to providing details and answering questions that could not be answered in Monday’s public Congressional hearing due to operational security and ongoing investigations,” the Secret Service said in a statement.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-MI) called the assassination attempt an “inexcusable security and planning failure.”
Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rand Paul (R-KY) said the committee has requested interviews with the Secret Service agents who were in charge of security at the rally but they have “not been allowed to speak with them.”
“I expect Director Rowe today to tell us when we will be allowed to talk to these people,” Paul said.
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Judiciary Committee ranking member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed frustration with the fact that no one had been disciplined or removed from their position in the weeks after the shooting.
“Somebody’s gotta be fired,” Graham said. “Nothing’s going to change until someone loses their job.”
