Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe was directly involved in denying additional security resources and personnel, including counter snipers, to former President Trump’s rallies and events – despite repeated requests by the agents assigned to Trump’s detail in the two years leading up to his July 13 attempted assassination, according to several sources familiar with the decision-making.
Rowe succeeded former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned last week after bipartisan calls following her widely panned testimony before the House Oversight Committee. But both Rowe and Cheatle were directly involved in decisions denying requests for more magnetometers, additional agents, and other resources to help screen rallygoers at large, outdoor Trump campaign gatherings.
It was Rowe’s decision alone to deny counter sniper teams to any Trump event outside of driving distance from D.C., these sources asserted.
Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate are set to appear Tuesday before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees.
Senators on both sides of the aisle have vowed to press for answers on the assassination attempt of former President Trump that took the life of rally-goer Corey Comperatore and wounded two others. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Homeland Security panel, said he plans to grill Rowe and Abbate on the “litany of gaps and failures.”
“There are monumental, critical questions that so far the leadership in these two agencies have failed to answer [for, and] even to begin to respond to,” Blumenthal said.
Sen. Ron Johnson, a senior member of the Homeland Security committee, told RCP he was initially impressed by Rowe’s willingness to answer senators’ questions late last week but pledged to question him closely about the denying of resources to protect Trump.
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