Senators from both parties pressed the Secret Service on Tuesday about how the agency will improve after the systemic failures and lack of transparency that enabled the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
At a sometimes tense joint hearing before the Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, senators aired concerns about why the Secret Service decided not to halt the July 13 rally at Butler, Pa., and why no agency officials have been held accountable other than former director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned last week.
Senators said they might address the failure through additional resources to assist agents in their work, legislation to make the position of Secret Service director subject to Senate confirmation, or a congressional review of the material from the internal investigations, such as communications on that day and interviews after the fact.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chair of the Homeland Security panel, said he has requested documentation from relevant entities related to security preparations for the event and the response to the assassination attempt from federal state and local authorities.
“By all accounts, this was an inexcusable security and planning failure, and we need to get all of the facts about what happened that day and how we can ensure an attack like this is never allowed to happen again,” Peters said.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, was among the senators who questioned acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. about why concerns about a suspicious individual identified long before he took shots at Trump didn’t raise alarms.
“The question is not whether there’s enough information to take down an individual,” Paul said. “It’s a much lower standard to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to wait until we get this individual. The roof and the 90 minutes of it, both I think are failures of your protocol. And I think when that’s determined the person who made these decisions can’t be in a position of authority again.”
Rowe said the Secret Service has had difficulties keeping agents because of interest from outside in poaching talent, and a hard time filling roles because of the rigorous hiring standards including background checks and security clearances.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, said the Secret Service deserves more funding and resources in addition to accountability.
“Let’s get more people more time off,” Graham concluded. “These are tough jobs. People in this community know, I don’t know how they hold a family together doing what they’re doing. It’s the military, really, on steroids.”
‘Failure at multiple levels’
Rowe admitted in his opening statement the shooting was a “failure at multiple levels,” saying the rooftop near the rally should have been made secure.
“What I saw made me ashamed,” Rowe 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 to prevent similar lapses from occurring in the future. I directed our personnel to ensure every event site security plan is thoroughly vetted by multiple experienced supervisors before it is implemented.”
Joining Rowe in testimony before the joint committee was Paul Abbate, deputy director of the FBI, who sought to provide an update of his agency’s investigation into the failure while making clear it was still ongoing.
“This as we all know, is an extraordinarily tragic set of circumstances of the utmost national importance, making essential to inform the American public and Congress what is known right now, with full transparency,” Abbate said.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, brought up a bill he wrote with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., that would make the position of Secret Service director subject to Senate confirmation and limit that person to single 10-year term.
Grassley said during the hearing the bill is “very important because no other agency has a no-fail mission.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., had questions about whether transcriptions of interviews from independent reviews within the Secret Service and internal communications among agents on that day would be made available to Congress, and expressed disappointment at some of the answers.
During Johnson’s questioning, Rowe said he would be able to get to the Senate transcriptions of the interviews from the internal review. Rowe did not immediately answer Johnson’s question about when the Wisconsin Republican when those interviews would be available, stating simply: “We will get them done, sir.”
But radio traffic by which the Secret Service communicated on that day would not be available, Rowe said. The acting director said the Secret Service doesn’t keep its communications records “on the road outside of D.C. or outside of a presidential or vice-presidential stop.” Rowe said, however, moving forward the agency would begin to keep those records.
Johnson was unimpressed: “So communications between Secret Service agents will not be available like we’ve gotten the communications from local law enforcement.”
A heated exchange took place when Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., questioned Rowe on why the Secret Service didn’t have a countersniper positioned to take out a potential sniper on the roof where the sniper took his shot, as well as why the agency hasn’t relieved of duty the lead site agent responsible for overseeing the safety for the Trump rally.
Rowe said he couldn’t give the name of the lead site agent, adding that person is “operational” and still doing investigations and protective visits.
Rowe said that any conclusions about fault would be premature, adding he can’t “make a rush to judgment about somebody failing.”
Hawley angrily questioned why a such person — as well as others involved in the responsibility of securing the Trump rally — hasn’t been relieved of duty.
“Isn’t the fact that a 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 that the person who decided that that building should not be in the security perimeter probably ought to be stepped down,” Hawley said.
Hawley urged him to “fire somebody.”
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