The acting director of the Secret Service said Tuesday he “cannot defend” why the roof used by the gunman in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump was not secured. Ronald Rowe, testifying before two Senate committees, said recently traveled to the Pennsylvania shooting site and “What I saw made me ashamed.” The FBI’s No. 2 official said a social media account believed to be associated with the gunman suspected in the assassination attempt espoused political violence and included antisemitic and anti-immigrant sentiment. The posts were from the 2019 and 2020 timeframe, when the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, would have been in high school.
Quick Read
- Acting Secret Service boss says he ‘cannot defend’ why roof in Trump rally shooting was not secured
- Rowe, ashamed by what he saw at the Pennsylvania shooting site, testifies before Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees
- FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate reveals social media posts by gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks espoused political violence and included antisemitic and anti-immigrant sentiments from 2019-2020
- Rowe became acting director after Kimberly Cheatle resigned following criticism over communication failures preceding the July 13 shooting
- Sen. Lindsey Graham criticizes the lack of accountability and calls for firings
- FBI discloses that Crooks researched mass shootings, power plants, and explosive devices online
- Trump agrees to be interviewed by FBI as a crime victim, expected interview on Thursday
- Crooks fired eight shots from a building 147 yards from Trump’s location in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one rallygoer and injuring two others before being shot dead by a Secret Service counter-sniper
- Cheatle admitted the roof was identified as a vulnerability and acknowledged communication failures
- Trump defended Secret Service agents but criticized the lack of coordination with local police and suggested better oversight was needed
The Associated Press has the story:
Acting Secret Service boss says he ‘cannot defend’ why roof in Trump rally shooting was not secured
Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP) —
The acting director of the Secret Service said Tuesday he “cannot defend” why the roof used by the gunman in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump was not secured. Ronald Rowe, testifying before two Senate committees, said recently traveled to the Pennsylvania shooting site and “What I saw made me ashamed.” The FBI’s No. 2 official said a social media account believed to be associated with the gunman suspected in the assassination attempt espoused political violence and included antisemitic and anti-immigrant sentiment. The posts were from the 2019 and 2020 timeframe, when the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, would have been in high school.
Senate lawmakers are grilling the officials about law enforcement lapses in the hours before the attempted assassination of Trump in the latest in a series of congressional hearings dedicated to the shooting. Rowe became acting director of the agency last week after Kimberly Cheatle resigned in the aftermath of a House hearing in which she was berated by lawmakers and failed to answer specific questions about the communication failures preceding the July 13 shooting. Rowe is being joined by FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at a joint hearing of the Senate committees on the Judiciary and Homeland Security. “If this happened in the military, a lot of people would be fired,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “And if a lot of people are not fired, the system failed yet again. He added: “Nothing’s going to change until somebody loses their job.”
The hearing comes one day after the FBI released new details about its investigation into the shooting, revealing that the gunman had looked online for information about mass shootings, power plants, improvised explosive devices and the May assassination attempt of the Slovakian prime minister. The FBI also said that Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has agreed to be interviewed by agents as a crime victim. The bureau said last week that the former president had been struck in the ear by a bullet or fragment of one. Trump said Monday evening that he expected that interview to take place on Thursday.
But most of the questions Tuesday are expected to be directed at Rowe as lawmakers demand answers about how Crooks was able to get so close to Trump. Investigators believe Crooks fired eight shots in Trump’s direction from an AR-style rifle after scaling the roof of a building of some 135 meters (147 yards) from where Trump was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania. One rallygoer was killed, and two others were injured. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
At her hearing last week, Cheatle said the Secret Service had “failed” in its mission to protect Trump. She called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades and vowed to “move heaven and earth” to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure there’s no repeat of it. Cheatle acknowledged that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting at the rally. She also revealed that the roof from which Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally. Cheatle said she apologized to Trump in a phone call after the assassination attempt.
In a Monday night interview on Fox News Channel, Trump defended the Secret Service agents who protected him from the shooting but said that someone should have been on the roof with Crooks and that there should have been better communication with local police. “They didn’t speak to each other,” he said. He praised the sniper who killed Crooks with what he said was an amazing shot but noted: “It would have been good if it was nine seconds sooner.”
