The congressional task force charged with investigating the attempted assassination on Donald Trump at a political rally on July 13 concluded its work Thursday, approving an unreleased report on their findings that recommended changes for the Secret Service.
Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, a Republican and chair of the task force, said the members after nearly five months of work identified multiple failures at the rally in Butler, Pa., such as planning errors that led to confusion among local law enforcement partners and the failure to secure the site.
“And this is most important: Communications and intelligence failures occurred in numerous ways, ranging from … agents failing to speak up about problems they observed, training issues, inadequate resources and not having the ability to communicate with one another in the moment of the crisis,” Kelly said.
Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, the top Democrat on the task force, commended the bipartisan approach on its mandate to investigate the failed assassination attempt.
“But we also had another mandate, another unofficial mandate, and that was to come together as Democrats and Republicans and to show the nation that we can undertake the work of conducting an investigation, of uncovering the truth, and submitting a bipartisan report telling that story, and that is what we have done,” Crow said.
The task force approved the report on a voice vote, although it is not yet public. The task force released an interim report in October. Crow told reporters after the hearing the report will be made public after a process of “conforming and technical changes” in consultation with staff, which he said could happen “as soon as today, it might take a day or two.”
Ronald Rowe Jr., the acting director of the Secret Service, testified before the task force that the agency’s failure at the rally “did not meet the expectations of the American public, Congress and our protectees.”
“The world is a dangerous place,” Rowe concluded. “The responsibilities of the Secret Service are critical to the national security of the United States. It is important that decision makers fully recognize and appreciate the vital role and significance of the Secret Service in our nation’s security.
“The terrorist, the nation state actor, the sniper, the lone gunner, the lone wolf gunman: They must be lucky once, but the men and women of the Secret Service must be perfect every time. It may not be fair, but it’s the world in which we operate in.”
Among the changes Rowe said he already has implemented are the expansion of unmanned aerial vehicle capability, improved training and accountability and directing an organizational change to restructure the Office of Investigations to the Office of Field Operations, which he said would “reset our thinking, thinking and perspective about the role field offices play in protection and to enhance our operational effectiveness.”
Rowe, in response to a question from Kelly on the most concerning failure of the Butler rally security, pointed to the “glaring” failure to recognize and secure the AGR building from which the shooter was able to fire at Trump.
“Those are basic tenants, fundamentals of what advanced teams are supposed to identify,” Rowe said. “They are supposed to identify hazardous risks and then mitigate those risks effectively, either by using law enforcement and coordinating assets or taking matters and making sure that it is mitigated and that risk is taken out.”
The intensive review of the task force, Kelly said, included 46 transcribed interviews with local, state, and federal officials, participation in more than a dozen briefings with U.S. agencies, and review of about 20,000 pages of documents.
There was one fiery exchange between Rep. Pat Fallon and Rowe. But the hearing generally wasn’t contentious and focused more about identifying failures, recommendations for change and Secret Service’s progress in implementing them. Rowe came into the position of acting director after the former director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned in the aftermath of the failures of the Butler rally.
Rep. Mark E. Green of Tennessee, a Republican and chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, also had choice words during the hearing, reflecting on his time as an infantry officer and flight surgeon.
“And I’ll tell you, going to war, I didn’t give a shit if I died,” Green said. “What I didn’t want to do was fail, but your guys showed up that day and didn’t give a shit. There was apathy and complacency, period.”
Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., identified several manpower issues. He said Secret Service agents are “overworked and exhausted,” pointing out 60 percent of the agents have fewer than 10 years of experience and 30 percent have fewer than five years of experience.
Rowe said the Secret Service is on pace now to hire 650 special agents and 350 uniformed officers.
The task force had expanded its jurisdiction to include a second attempt on Sept. 15 near Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. The second attempt, however, was barely mentioned in the hearing.
Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., lamented still not having access to certain information from the Secret Service, despite the reams of information the task force was able to obtain over the course of its investigation.
“In a very real sense, we do not have some of the critical intelligence information that might have helped us even better understand the needs of your agency going forward,” Lee said.
After the hearing, Lee identified that information as related to both assassination attempts. She said the Department of Justice continued to withhold information about digital devices, including what the would-be assassins were looking at and who they are affiliated with, as well as the interview transcripts of the families of these individuals, which she said could help with understanding motives.
Crow said the reason the Justice Department gave for withholding the material was ongoing investigations, although he said he disagreed with that reasoning because members of Congress “have authority to conduct oversight over all of government.”
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