Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe on Tuesday acknowledged that the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13 represented a “failure on multiple levels,” and pledged his full support to the various ongoing investigations into the events of that day.
In opening comments to the Senate committees on homeland security and the judiciary, Rowe said he traveled to Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month to see the agency’s failures firsthand.
“What I saw made me ashamed,” he said. “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.”
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate also answered questions at Tuesday’s hearing, telling senators the agency has discovered a trove of extremist content that appears to have been written by the would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Abbate said a social media account that Crooks appears to have used in 2019 and 2020 had “over 700 comments” that “appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence, and are described as extreme in nature.” No clear motive has been identified, however.
The agency is investigating the shooting as both an attempted assassination and an incident of domestic terrorism. Senator Ron Johnson (Republican, Wisconsin) objected to the second label, telling Abbate he feared that categorising the shooting as terrorism would make the investigation “potentially partisan.”
While taking full responsibility for the incident, Rowe also blamed poor communication with local law enforcement for the security lapse.
Local law enforcement officers were aware of Crooks’ presence at the building for an hour and a half before he opened fire from the rooftop, he said. But, a clearly frustrated Rowe said, the Secret Service was not alerted.
“The only thing we had was that locals were working an issue at the 3 o’clock ― which would have been the former president’s right-hand side ― which is where the shot came. Nothing about ‘man on the roof,’ nothing about ‘man with a gun.’ None of that information ever made it over our net,” Rowe said.
“We assumed that the state and locals had it,” he added later, prompting Sen. John Cornyn (Republican, Texas) to counter: “Those assumptions can be lethal.”
Crooks was obscured by the roofline and went unseen by Secret Service snipers until he opened fire. Rowe said the shooter was “neutralised” within 15.5 seconds of his first shot.
Rowe took over the top job at the agency last week, after former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned following a disastrous appearance before the House oversight and accountability committee.
Senate Judiciary committee Chair Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) opened the hearing by acknowledging how a failure to adequately regulate guns also contributed to the shooting.
“While we rely on the Secret Service to protect elected officials, we must acknowledge the unique challenges they face in light of the proliferation of weapons of war on our street,” Durbin said.
“Pennsylvania, like many states, allows individuals to openly carry a loaded rifle without a permit,” he said. “To make matters worse, assault rifles can easily be purchased from the licenced dealers without a background check because of dangerous loopholes in our gun laws.”