WASHINGTON — The Secret Service’s acting director told lawmakers on Tuesday that he considered it indefensible that the roof used by the gunman in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was unsecured, faulting local law enforcement for not circulating urgent information ahead of the shooting and for not adequately protecting the scene.
He also testified that he recently visited the shooting site and said, “What I saw made me ashamed.” He said that the shooting amounted to a “failure on multiple levels,” including a failure of imagination.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. meets with FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, center, and U.S. Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe, left, before they testify before a Joint Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing examining the security failures leading to the assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, Tuesday, July 30, 2024 in Washington.
The testimony was the most detailed catalogue to date by the Secret Service of law enforcement failings and miscommunications, with Rowe accepting blame for his own agency’s mistakes while also repeatedly lacing into local law enforcement for not sharing information that a gunman, later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, had been spotted on a roof near the rally site in the minutes before the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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“We assumed that the state and locals had it,” Rowe said. “We made an assumption that there was going to be uniformed presence out there, that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be counter-sniper teams” in the building from whose roof Crooks fired shots, less than 150 yards (135 meters) from the rally stage where Trump was speaking.
“And I can assure you,” Rowe added, “that we’re not going to make that mistake again.”
Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was struck in the ear by a bullet or a bullet fragment in the assassination attempt, one rallygoer was killed and two others were injured before the gunman was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
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