Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. testified before the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees on Tuesday about the agency’s failures that led to the attempted assassination against President Trump.
“I went to the roof of the AGR building where the assailant fired shots and laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. What I saw made me ashamed,” Ronald Rowe said in his opening statement. “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.”
Rowe blamed local law enforcement for allowing Crooks to climb up on the roof and said Trump’s security detail had no idea there was a gunman until shots were fired.
“It is my understanding those personnel were not aware that the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots,” Rowe said. “Prior to that, they were operating with the knowledge that local law enforcement was working on issue of a suspicious individual prior to the shots being fired.”
Ronald Rowe told Senator Grassley that cellular problems prevented the Secret Service from launching a counter drone system to detect would-be assassin Thomas Crooks.
Thomas Crooks flew a drone over the Butler fairgrounds at least twice on the day of the Trump rally.
He flew his drone at approximately 3:50 – 4:05 pm that day – during the time the Secret Service was having connectivity issues.
“That what if we … geo-located him because that counter UAS platform had been up? It is something that I have struggled with to understand,” Rowe said. “I have no explanation for, it is something that I feel as though we could have perhaps found him. We could have maybe stopped him. Maybe on that particular day, he would have decided this isn’t the day to do it, because law enforcement just found me flying my drone.”
Rowe told lawmakers that the drone system went back online at 5 pm after being down for 2 hours.
WATCH:
“We could have maybe stopped him.”
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe says that if cellular capability was better on July 13, officials could have launched the counter drone system sooner to detect the Trump rally shooter. https://t.co/D1bybQt0MV pic.twitter.com/qXmRZ85hFM
— ABC News (@ABC) July 30, 2024
