The acting director of the Secret Service testified Tuesday that he was “ashamed” by the security failures that led to the assassination attempt about former President Donald Trump and promised to discipline any agents who did not do their jobs.
During a rare joint Senate committee hearing, acting director Ronald Rowe Jr. said he could not understand or defend why the roof from which the 20-year-old gunman fired the gun on July 13 was not better protected.
He said the Secret Service was investigating whether any employees broke any rules that day. Those employees, Rowe said, would be held accountable through the agency’s disciplinary process and face penalties that could include termination.
“That roof should have better coverage,” he said, “and we will find out if there were any policy violations.”
Rowe demonstrated angry outbursts at the beginning of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee while discussing what went wrong during Trump’s presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Rowe said he traveled to the scene of the shooting and climbed onto the roof to assess the shooter’s line of sight and lay down on his stomach.
“What I saw made me ashamed,” he said. “As a career police officer and 25-year veteran of the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better protected.”
At the very least, Rowe said, someone should have been looking at the roof, but there was a “failure of imagination.”
Rowe raised his voice again as Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., pressed him to make immediate resignations. Rowe said he would not do so, nor rush to judgment, until a proper investigation was completed.
“You’re asking me, Senator, to make a snap judgment about someone who failed,” Rowe said.
Rowe said he would take disciplinary action as warranted and “with integrity.”
“This was a failure and we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
Tuesday’s hearing is the last in a Series that lawmakers held to investigate how Thomas Crooks, 20, managed to evade law enforcement and open fire on Trump.
Trump was shot in the ear, a rally attendee was killed and two others were injured before Crooks was shot to death by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
Rowe said the inability of all agencies to communicate directly with each other hurt the Secret Service.
Local authorities confirmed that Crooks was armed at approximately 6:11 p.m. Local police officers reported the threat over a radio, but that information was not passed on to the Secret Service, Rowe said.
Secret Service countersnipers were unaware that Crooks was armed on the roof “until they heard gunshots,” Rowe said.
Only about 30 seconds passed from the time the local officer confirmed that Crooks was armed to when Crooks opened fire.
Rowe said there has been a “delay in reporting” and that officials have not established a way for all agencies to communicate directly with each other. This process would take months of planning and require “a lot,” he said.
“Technically you could do it, but it would take a long time to do it,” Rowe said.
Rowe was appointed interim director last week after Kimberly Cheatle resignedfollowing a contentious House Oversight Committee hearing in which legislators skewered her for their lack of cooperation.
“I have heard your calls for accountability and I take them very seriously,” Rowe said.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who is also testifying, said investigators found a social media account that may have belonged to Crooks, which espoused anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant views and had posts about political violence.
Abbate said the FBI has not yet confirmed that the account belonged to Crooks. The agency still doesn’t know why.
Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that Crooks may have a firearm with a folding stock, making it easier for him to carry and conceal the weapon.
The shooter had researched the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and had already traveled to the rally site.
On the morning of the rally, he returned to the campaign site, where he stayed for about an hour, and left that afternoon to buy 50 rounds of ammunition.
Wray said Crooks was back at the rally site just before 4pm when he flew a drone about 200 meters from the main stage area.
Two hours later, witnesses began shouting about a suspicious man on the roof of a nearby building.
Crooks began firing at least eight shots within seconds of realizing an officer at the scene had spotted him, Wray said.
The police officer received encouragement from a colleague and pulled his head up to the roof. Crooks pointed the gun at the officer, causing him to fall, and then began shooting at Trump, Wray said.
On Monday, Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said Crooks was “highly intelligent” and made “significant efforts to conceal his activity.”
Rojek confirmed that Crooks’ gun had a folding stock and that he climbed onto the roof by climbing over HVAC equipment and pipes.
On the internet, the shooter also searched power plants, mass shootings, explosive devices and assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in May, Rojek said.
Criminals purchased more than 25 firearms through online sellers, using an alias, starting in spring 2023, Rojek said.
His father legally purchased the assault rifle Crooks used in the shooting and legally transferred it to Crooks last year, Rojek said.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
