Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe defended the agency’s failure to fire any of the agents involved in the planning and response to the assassination attempt of former President Trump, saying he did not want to “rush to judgment.”
Numerous lawmakers questioned why no agents had been removed from their posts during testy exchanges with the acting director.
In one clash during aggressive questioning by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rowe said he “could not tip the scales” and said “we need to allow the investigation to play out.”
Hawley demanded the firing of a number of Secret Service personnel, from whoever approved the security plan to whoever failed to pull Trump offstage despite warnings about a suspicious person.
“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 building should not be in the security perimeter probably ought to be stepped down?” Hawley said, referencing the AGR building Thomas Matthew Crooks fired from.
Rowe said agents involved were cooperating with an internal investigation.
“I want to be neutral and make sure that we get to the bottom of it and interview everybody in order to determine if there was more than one person who perhaps exercised bad judgment,” Rowe said, adding he did not want to “zero in on one or two individuals.”
Hawley repeatedly asserted that there was “prima facia” evidence that the Secret Service failed.
“You’ve been on the job a few days so far. You’ve fired nobody,” Hawley griped.
At one point in the exchange, Rowe became emotional.
“I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days, just like you have, and I will tell you, senator, that I will not rush to judgment, that people will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people [out there to be] unfairly persecuted,” Rowe said.
“Unfairly persecuted?” Hawley responded. “We’ve got people who are dead.”
“You said earlier that you’ve got to make sure that your protocols are followed and unless there’s a protocol violation, people wouldn’t be disciplined,” Hawley said.
“I would just say to you, I don’t really care that much about your protocols.”
One person was killed and two were wounded in the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life at a rally in Butler, Pa.
In another heated exchange — this time between Rowe and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — Cruz lobbed questions over whether Trump’s team had asked for additional security in the past and was rebuffed by the Secret Service.
Cruz, a Trump loyalist, also wanted to know whether there were specific people involved in making security resource decisions.
“The process is that a [campaign] detail will make a request for either staffing, technical assets, that is handled between the field office and the detail, it goes up to a logistics office,” Rowe explained.
“So there’s a bureaucracy,” Cruz shot back. “Give me the person that’s the decision-maker. Is there one?”
Rowe refused to give names, saying there is “a process” and conversation around each request, and it’s “not just an absolute yay or nay.”
He added that “there is a difference between the sitting president of the United States,” and a presidential candidate as far as the resources and number of agents they will receive for events.
“Then what’s the difference?” Cruz shouted, cutting Rowe off.
“The difference [is] national command authority to launch a nuclear strike, sir,” Rowe responded. “There are other assets that travel with the president that the former president will not get.”
“Stop interrupting me,” Cruz yelled. “You are refusing to answer clear and direct questions.”
Cruz also said that he believes “that the Secret Service leadership made a political decision to deny these requests” guided by the Biden administration.
Rowe stressed that “Secret Service agents are not political.”
Updated: 1:09 p.m.