Senator Peters (00:00):
This was an attack on our democracy. Americans should be able to attend a political rally and express their political beliefs without fear of violence, and political candidates for our nation's highest office should be confident that their safety will never be compromised for their service. Although we're still learning about the shooter's motive, this attack was a shocking reminder that the threat of political violence is alive and well in our country. (00:32) By all accounts, this was an inexcusable security and planning failure, and we need to get all of the facts about what happened that day and how we can ensure an attack like this is never allowed to happen again. Today's panel of witnesses leads the men and women who protect our top leaders and are investigating this crime, and I want to thank them both for being here today, as well as the Secret Service and FBI for a very productive and informative briefing with our committees last week. (01:06) Today, our witnesses will help us begin to answer critical questions and get the information that we need to implement reforms that are clearly needed to strengthen security protocols for the US Secret Service and the people who receive their protection. The Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee has already begun that work. This discussion comes in the midst of a bipartisan investigation that Senator Paul and I have launched, in which we launched shortly after the assassination attempt took place. (01:39) Our teams are still collecting critical information, speaking to law enforcement, and piercing together the details of this event. This past weekend, a bipartisan team of our investigators, along with key staff from Senators Blumenthal and Senator Johnson's office, traveled to Pennsylvania to speak with local law enforcement officials, review critical information from security officials who were working alongside the Secret Service, and to see the site firsthand. (02:12) I want to thank the incredibly brave local law enforcement officers in and around Butler County who responded that afternoon and who met with my staff this past weekend. They have helped to answer tough questions as well as discuss in detail how the event actually unfolded. I also want to thank the owners of Butler Country Farm Show and the American Glass Research for allowing my staff and law enforcement to walk the grounds and examine the roof of the building the gunman was able to assess. We greatly appreciate your assistance. (02:48) I've also requested documents, along with Senators Paul Blumenthal and Johnson, related to security preparations, intelligence-gathering on potential violence prior to the attack, and detailed explanations of the security response from federal, state, and local authorities. As part of our ongoing investigation, we also seek to speak with additional federal law enforcement personnel, including Secret Service agents who were responsible for securing the event. (03:18) Today's hearing is an important opportunity to ask critical questions and to begin to give the American people the transparency and the answers that they certainly deserve. There are still many unanswered questions. We need additional information about the Secret Service's advanced planning efforts, the decisions surrounding sniper and counter-sniper team use, placement and coordination. We also need answers about what appears to be a problematic communication system that limited efforts to relay information and respond to events as they unfolded real time. (03:54) While today is focused on asking difficult questions about what went wrong, I also want to thank the men and women of the Secret Service, who in an instant will lay their lives on the line to protect our nation's leaders. They have incredibly challenging jobs, and they must continue their mission no matter what our hearing and investigation reveals. (04:16) I'm also grateful to our Senate Judiciary Committee colleagues for joining us in this important discussion, given their key role and oversight of both of the agencies represented before us today. It's very clear that the US Senate is focused on a productive conversation that will generate real answers and real reforms. I appreciate all the work from members of both of our committees to help us achieve this absolutely essential goal. (04:43) I would now like to recognize Ranking Member Paul for his opening remarks.
Dr. Paul (04:49): 18 days ago, a would-be assassin managed to climb onto a roof 400 feet from the stage where the former president and leading presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was speaking. The assassin's bullet struck President Trump, narrowly missing a fatal blow, thanks to a last-minute head turn. Tragically, not everyone was so fortunate. A beloved husband and father in the audience was killed, his life stolen in an instant. Two others remain seriously injured, their futures uncertain. (05:18) The lives of law enforcement officers working the event and those in the audience have been forever changed. Yet, the media has shamefully moved on to other stories, and Google has been caught trying to suppress iconic images of a bloody Donald Trump, images showcasing the resolve of our nation in the face of the attack. But the American people have not forgotten, and we will not forget. (05:42) There is no question that this was a monumental failure by the Secret Service. They had one job, and they failed. We know that. What remains unclear is who specifically failed, how they failed, and what must be done to ensure that something like this never happens again. America deserves to know that those responsible for this failure are, frankly, not going to be in charge of securing the upcoming Democrat National Convention. We need to know that someone's been placed on suspension, that someone won't be in charge of the next Donald Trump rally. (06:15) Now, I was encouraged to hear that the Acting Director Rowe has initiated a disciplinary investigation in addition to the ongoing Secret Service policy review. This is an important step. However, real accountability will require a comprehensive examination of all the facts, which still remain unclear. This past Friday, my investigative team went to Pennsylvania to meet with local law enforcement and document the scene. (06:40) One of the concerning things my team was told is that no one from Secret Service has talked to them since the shooting. I don't know how an investigation into what failed can be conducted without talking to the officers and agencies who were relied upon to do much of the work. Many questions remain unanswered about the planning and performance of security for July 13th. (07:02) While a host of errors led to this security disaster, we now know local enforcement officers were suspicious of the shooter 90 minutes in advance of the shooting. There are two glaring issues we need to focus on. First, why were the AGR grounds and the roof left unattended? Why was the AGR building, the shooter's perch, left outside the perimeter? Local law enforcement told my staff that they specifically flagged the vulnerability of the building to the Secret Service and were told that it would be taken care of. Clearly, these vulnerabilities were not addressed. (07:38) Second, why was Donald Trump allowed to take the stage, and why wasn't he removed from the stage when a suspicious individual was taking increasingly suspicious activities? Over 20 minutes before President Trump began his speech, the Secret Service Command Center had been made aware of an individual with a range finder. At least 10 minutes before it was confirmed, the Secret Service's counter-sniper team had been made aware of the suspicious subject and provided a photograph and a detailed description. Why was the event not delayed until the individual was found and checked out? (08:13) Interviews with local law enforcement paint a different picture in critical places from what we have been told by the Secret Service in other briefings. Now we need to hear from the Secret Service agents responsible for security that day. Our committee has formally requested interviews with those agents, but we have not yet been allowed to speak to them. I expect Director Rowe today to tell us when we will be allowed to talk to these people. (08:38) Finally, let me close with this. Grave mistakes were made on July 13th, but that does not take away from the bravery of dozens of federal, state, and local officers that day. We are grateful for their sacrifices and professionalism. They deserve the truth now, also. It is our duty and our utmost responsibility to ensure that we learn from this failure and hold those responsible accountable.
Senator Peters (09:04): I would now like to recognize Chairman Durbin of the Senate Judiciary Committee for his opening remarks.
Mr. Durbin (09:10): Thank you, Senator Peters. This is a rare joint meeting of the two committees, but we have matching jurisdiction and I think it's the most efficient way to get to the truth. So thank you for letting us join you today. (09:21) We've all seen the movies. We've read the books. The international assassin with sophisticated technology, elaborate plans, well-honed skills, sets out to kill a leading political figure in the United States. But how does that match the reality of what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a 20-year-old introverted college student outsmarted one of the most sophisticated American law enforcement agencies in history, came within an inch of killing a former president of the United States? (09:55) That's why we gather today to ask these hard questions. There's more to this story and other aspects that we ought to consider as well. We cannot lose sight of the factor that contributed to the violence on July 13th, widespread easy access to AR-15 military-style rifles. While we rely on the Secret Service to protect elected officials, we must acknowledge the unique challenges they face in light of the proliferation of weapons of war on our street. (10:25) Pennsylvania, like many states, allows individuals to openly carry a loaded rifle without a permit. To make matters worse, assault rifles can easily be purchased from unlicensed dealers without a background check because of dangerous loopholes in our gun laws. The same kind of firearm has been used to carry out mass shootings in Newtown, Uvalde, Las Vegas, and Highland Park, Illinois, killing dozens of children and adults and injuring many more. (10:52) Looking across this dais, I recognize we have our differences on many issues, but when it comes to the protection of the president and the presidential candidates, we should stand united. We know that protecting our elected officials is essential to a functioning democracy. I hope this hearing can be an example of how we will work together on a bipartisan basis to not only understand this shocking event, but to ensure it never happens again. (11:17) We must do this without the incendiary language and conspiracy-mongering that too often dominates our political discourse today. Ongoing investigations by the Secret Service and the FBI are critical, but Congress, the victims' families, and the American people deserve transparency and accountability now. I'll now turn to my partner on the Judiciary Committee, Ranking member Lindsey Graham.
Mr. Graham (11:40): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Several of us from the military have a military background. If this happened in the military, a lot of people would be fired. If a lot of people are not fired, the system failed yet again. Having said that, the people who were brave and jumped on the stage to protect the President need to be applauded. We need to learn what happened, make corrective action, but somebody's got to be fired. Nothing's going to change until somebody loses their job. Thank you.
Senator Peters (12:18): It's the practice of the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee to swear in witnesses, so if our two witnesses could please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God? Thank you. You may be seated. (12:38) Our first witness is Ronald Rowe, Jr. Mr. Rowe is currently the acting director of the United States Secret Service. Prior to this role, Acting Director Rowe was the 23rd deputy director of the Secret Service. He has had a distinguished 25-year career in the Secret Service, from coordinating major security operations to collaborating with other government and law enforcement agencies. Additionally, he has served as the chief of staff to the director, is deputy assistant director for the Office of Protective Operations, and as deputy assistant director for the Office of Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs. (13:16) Mr. Director, thank you for appearing before this committee today. You are now recognized for your opening statement.
Acting Director Rowe (13:23): Good morning. Chairman Peters, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Paul, Ranking Member Graham, and distinguished members of the committees, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. A critical part of the Secret Service mission is protecting our nation's current and former government leaders. The attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a failure on multiple levels. (13:56) I join you and all Americans in condemning the horrific assault on former President Trump, Corey Comperatore, James Copenhaver, and David Dutch, and I extend my deepest sympathies to the Comperatore family and my sincere wishes for Mr. Copenhaver and Mr. Dutch's continued recovery. (14:17) Before I begin though, I want to commend the heroic actions of the men and women of the United States Secret Service on July 13th. Our special agents shielded the former president with their bodies while shots were still being fired, selflessly willing to make the ultimate sacrifice without hesitation. I am extremely proud of these actions and those taken by the counter-sniper team to neutralize the threat that prevented further loss of life, and I applaud the actions of our tactical teams that responded so quickly. (14:51) I would also like to express my gratitude to our federal, state, and local partners. We rely on these critical relationships which have developed over decades of daily collaboration to secure protective events and conduct criminal investigations. (15:08) As you're aware, there are multiple ongoing investigations of the attack and the security failures that occurred that day. I pledge my full support to those inquiries so the Secret Service, your committees, and the American people have a thorough and complete understanding of what happened leading up to and during July 13th. I will not wait for the results of those findings to assess where we failed that day. I have taken, and will continue to take, immediate steps to ensure we do not repeat those failures. (15:41) Since my appointment as the acting director one week ago, I identified gaps in our security on July 13th and have implemented corrective actions. One of my first actions as acting director was traveling to the Butler Farm Show site to better understand how our protection failed. I went to the roof of the AGR building where the assailant fired shots, and I laid in a prone position to evaluate his line-of-sight. What I saw made me ashamed. (16:13) 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. To prevent similar lapses from occurring in the future, I directed our personnel to ensure every event site security plan is thoroughly vetted by multiple experienced supervisors before it is implemented. (16:37) It is clear to me that other protective enhancements could have strengthened our security at the Butler event. As such, I have directed the expanded use of unmanned aerial systems at protective sites to help detect threats on roofs and other elevated threats. I've also directed resources to facilitate our protective site communications, particularly our communications with our state and local partners. In addition, I have instructed the asset requests for Secret Service protective details to be approved expeditiously and have ordered the maximum use of requested personnel at protective sites to address this heightened security environment. (17:19) I've heard your calls for accountability, and I take them very seriously. Given the magnitude of this failure, the Secret Service's Office of Professional Responsibility is reviewing the actions and decision-making of Secret Service personnel in the lead-up to and on the day of the attack. If this investigation reveals that Secret Service employees violated agency protocols, those employees will be held accountable to our disciplinary process. (17:47) With respect to congressional investigations and requests for information, I instructed my staff to provide full cooperation and respond expeditiously on a continuing basis to ensure you have the information you need to conduct your critical oversight. In my testimony before you today, I will provide details on the Secret Service's advanced security planning for the Butler Farm Show site, facts as we know them regarding the incident itself, known breakdowns in executing the security plan, and corrective actions that the agency is taking to ensure that nothing like this happens again. But I do not believe that inadequate time to plan for this event was a factor in the failure. (18:33) As you saw in my written statement, I am prepared to provide an overview of the security planning leading up to and during the July 13th attack. However, I would like to point out that, based on what I know right now, neither the Secret Service counter-sniper teams nor members of the former president's security detail had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the AGR Building with a firearm. (18:56) It is my understanding those personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots. Prior to that, they were operating with the knowledge that local law enforcement was working an issue of a suspicious individual prior to the shots being fired. I regret that information was not passed to Congress and the public sooner with greater frequency, and I fear this lack of information has given rise to multiple false and dangerous conspiracy theories about what took place that day, and I want to debunk these theories. Let me address one conspiracy directly. The Secret Service counter-sniper neutralized the assailant within seconds after the assailant fired his weapon. That counter-sniper had full discretion to use deadly force to stop an attacker and did not need to seek authorization to fire. I am immensely proud of the selfless dedication of our employees to the mission. Every day across the globe, the men and women answer the call to protect our nation's leaders, and the standard is no-fail for a reason. (20:07) During our current high operational tempo, I want and I need to ensure that the Secret Service workforce are uplifted so they can focus on carrying out the mission. They have my full support, and I am confident in their abilities to ensure the safety and security of the people we protect. They are worthy of trust and confidence, and they deserve your support as well as the support of the American people. (20:35) Chairman Peters, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Paul, Ranking Member Graham, and members of the committees, thank you for the opportunity to testify at this joint hearing. I will submit the remainder of my statement for the record, and I will answer your questions.
Senator Peters (20:51): Thank you, Mr. Rowe. Our second witness is Paul Abbate. Mr. Abbate is the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the Department of Justice. In this role, Deputy Director Abbate oversees all FBI domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities. Prior to his appointment as deputy director, he has had a distinguished three decades within the FBI leading counter-terrorism efforts and most recently as the associate deputy director of the FBI, where he's responsible for the management of all FBI personnel, budget, administration, as well as infrastructure. (21:29) Mr. Abbate, thank you for appearing before the committee here today. You are recognized for your opening remarks.
Deputy Director Abbate (21:35): Thank you, sir. Good morning, Chairman Peters and Durbin, Ranking Members Paul and Graham, and distinguished members of the committee. It is a privilege to appear before you today to discuss the FBI's investigation of the attempted assassination of former President Trump on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania. (21:52) Before going further, I want to again offer my and our condolences to the victims of this heinous attack, to the family and loved ones of heroic firefighter and father, Corey Comperatore, to Mr. Dutch, to Mr. Copenhaver, who continue to recover, and to former President Trump, who was also struck by a bullet fired from the shooter's rifle. Our thoughts and prayers are with each of them and their families and loved ones. (22:20) Within minutes of the attack, the FBI field office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received notification of the assassination attempt and responded to the scene immediately with a surge of resources, quickly moving forward on the investigation. From the outset, the FBI has been investigating this attack as an assassination attempt and an act of domestic terrorism. Our team continues to conduct a full, thorough ,and objective investigation and will continue to follow all leads and avenues of investigation to logical conclusion, leaving no stone unturned. (22:56) While it's not typical to provide details of an ongoing investigation, this, as we all know, is an extraordinarily tragic set of circumstances of the utmost national importance, making it essential to inform the American public and Congress what is known right now with full transparency. The investigation remains focused, of course, on determining motive, identifying any potential co-conspirators or others with knowledge of the attack, and building out a timeline of shooter, Thomas Crook's, actions in advance of and during the attack. Thus far, though absolutely nothing has been ruled out, the investigation has not identified a motive nor any co-conspirators or others with advanced knowledge. To date, the FBI team has conducted more than 460 interviews, executed search warrants, including at the shooter's residence, and seized electronic media to include phones, laptops, hard drives, and thumb drives. (23:54) Legal process has been issued to dozens of companies, and we've received more than 2,000 tips from the public. The full resources of the FBI have been brought to bear in furtherance of the investigation, agents, analysts, professional staff, experts. I've personally visited the site of this horrific attack and seen firsthand the work of FBI Pittsburgh and our partners on the front line and want to thank all involved for their ongoing and tireless efforts to get the answers that we need and to deliver justice. (24:25) Specialized resources deployed included evidence response teams, victim services specialists, laboratory and operational technology division resources to process physical and digital evidence, a shooting reconstruction team. Additionally, our explosive experts have analyzed the three IEDs recovered, two from the shooter's vehicle, one from the family residence, and our behavioral analysis unit, importantly, is helping to build a profile of the shooter to include his mental state. (24:56) Next, I want to provide a brief highlighted overview of the timeline that has been established to date through witness interviews and other information. Again, this is our understanding at present and is subject to change and further refinement as more facts are collected. On July 3rd, the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was announced. On July 6th, the shooter registered to attend the rally and performed a search for "how far was Oswald from Kennedy." (25:22) On July 7th, the shooter traveled from his home to the Butler Farm Show grounds and remained there for approximately 20 minutes. We assessed this show's advanced planning and reconnaissance on his part. On July 12th, the shooter traveled from his home to the Clairton Sportsmen Club where he practiced shooting. On the morning of July 13th at approximately 10:00 a.m., the shooter returned to the farm show grounds and remained there for about 70 minutes before returning home again. (25:50) At approximately 1:30 p.m. while at the residence, the shooters father gave him a rifle for the purpose, he believed, of going back to the sportsmen club. About 25 minutes later, the shooter purchased ammunition while en route to the Butler Farm Show grounds. The subject then arrived at the scene, was moving around the farm show grounds close to the American Glass Research, AGR, building from which he ultimately committed the attack. (26:18) Shortly thereafter, at approximately 3:51 p.m., the shooter flew a drone approximately 200 yards from the farm show grounds for about 11 minutes. The drone and controller were later found in the subject's car. Analysis has not revealed any photos or video taken by the drone, but we can confirm that he was live-streaming at the time and would have been able to view it on his controller. (26:44) The first reported sighting of the shooter by local law enforcement was at approximately 4:26 p.m. At approximately 5:10 p.m., the shooter was again identified by local law enforcement as a suspicious person around the AGR building. At approximately 5:14 p.m., a local SWAT operator took a photo of the shooter. At about 5:32 p.m., local SWAT observed the shooter next to the AGR building using his phone, browsing news sites, and with a range finder. (27:15) At approximately 5:38 p.m., the photo of the shooter taken earlier was sent to local SWAT operators in a text message group. Subsequently, approximately 25 minutes prior to the shooting, the US Secret Service command post was notified of a suspicious person. Officers lost sight of the subject from approximately 6:02 p.m. to 6:08 p.m., but continued to communicate with each other in an attempt to locate him. (27:43) Recently discovered video from a local business shows the shooter pulling himself up onto the AGR building rooftop at approximately 6:06 p.m. At approximately 6:08 p.m., the subject was observed on the roof by local law enforcement. At approximately 6:11 p.m., a local police officer was lifted to the roof by another officer, saw the shooter, and radioed that he was armed with "a long gun." Within approximately the next 30 seconds, the shots were fired. (28:16) The evidence recovery team found eight shell casings at the scene next to the shooter's body. We believe the shooter fired eight rounds. While the investigation has not determined motive, the investigative team continues to review information from legal returns, including online and social media accounts. Something just very recently uncovered that I want to share is a social media account, which is believed to be associated with the shooter in about the 2019, 2020 timeframe. (28:48) There were over 700 comments posted from this account. Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence, and are described as extreme in nature. While the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did, in fact, belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and note it today, particularly given the general absence of other information, to date, from social media and other sources of information that reflect on the shooter's potential motive and mindset. (29:27) These are the facts, in part, that the investigation has revealed, to date. While the shooter is dead, our work is very much ongoing and urgent. Thank you, and I look forward to answering any and all questions.
Senator Peters (29:42): Thank you, Mr. Abbate. We'll now proceed. Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Graham will ask the first two questions. I will then ask a question, Ranking Member Paul, and then after that we will alternate between members of the judiciary, recognized by Chairman Durbin, and members of the Homeland Security Committee, recognized by me. With that, Senator Durbin, you're recognized for your questions.
Mr. Durbin (30:02): Thank you, Senator Peters. I would like to begin by making a statement. It's not in the form of a question, and you'll understand why when I say it. In 20 days, we're going to start the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I have been briefed by the law enforcement agencies of plans for security for that event. Tens of thousands of people will be there, including some of the highest ranking politicians in the United States. (30:28) I trust that both of your agencies can answer in the affirmative if I ask you whether you're actively engaged in working with the development of security plan, taking into consideration at lessons of July 13th.
Acting Director Rowe (30:43): Senator, that is 100% yes from the Secret Service.
Deputy Director Abbate (30:47): Yes, from the FBI as well, sir. We've been working on this for well over a year in preparation.
Mr. Durbin (30:53): I'm not going to ask for details, for obvious reasons, but I do want to ask a question about the Secret Service staffing. Congress has nearly doubled the budget for the Secret Service over the last 10 years from $1.8 billion in fiscal year 2014 to $3 billion in fiscal year 2024. Despite this large increase in funding, the number of agents in protective operations has fallen from 4,027 to 3,671 during that same time, an approximate 9% reduction. (31:25) Acting Director Rowe, what accounts for protective operations losing 356 agents over the past 10 years.
Acting Director Rowe (31:35): Senator, with respect to where we are today on staffing, and then I'll address the 10-year where we were. In this year alone, we are going to end the year on the positive of 200+ agents. That's the first time in a number of years that we've been able to do that. Part of that was gaining some efficiencies in our hiring process. But what I want to re-emphasize is that we have not dropped standards. Only 2% of every applicant actually makes it through the hiring process. (32:12) We are filling our classes at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and we are doing this ramp-up as part of what lies ahead of us with the LA Olympics in 2028. With respect to what has happened in years prior, this is a difficult and challenging job, being a Secret Service agent, living your life by somebody else's schedule, constantly away from your family, constantly having to meet increased operational and investigative demands, which we gladly do, but it's not for everyone. (32:46) I think there are times where people have to make tough choices, and they decide to leave the agency. But that doesn't mean that they were any less of an agent or that they weren't committed to the mission because we are all committed to being patriots
Acting Director Rowe (33:00): ... Patriots and serving our country and protecting our nation's highest leaders. I think there was a variety of factors. Some of it was the pandemic, some of it was the economy or other opportunities. We have people that are very skilled in cyber that often leave the job. Some of the protective skills that they acquire are also in demand in the private sector, but some of the mechanisms that we've put in place just in the last year is also retaining our workforce, and that's what we are focused on right now.
Mr. Durbin (33:27): The Government Accountability Office has determined that restaffing from these losses have been slowed due to a number of factors including the years, years, long background checks for prospective agents and the assignments agents must work through before being assigned to protection. Given these constraints, what steps have you taken to improve recruitment?
Acting Director Rowe (33:50): So we're actually putting out targeted recruitment opportunities. So we've just recently put it out within our uniform division for our counter sniper unit, our hazardous agent, medical emergency response unit, our counter assault team on the special agent side. So we're actually trying to gather the best and the brightest. And I will tell you that we are having great success with a lot of these vacancies. But what I want to reiterate is that, for example, on the counter assault vacancy, we had 700 applicants that applied for this. Really, what we will glean after they make it through the process, and they have to be able to hold a top secret SCI clearance, will be, if we realize 15 out of that tranche, that's a 2% pass rate. So it is very competitive and we are trying to make sure that we are getting the best and the brightest without dropping standards.
Mr. Durbin (34:53): One last question for either one of you. What is the purpose of a range finder, and once this assassin was identified as using a range finder, wasn't that proof positive that he was a dangerous individual?
Acting Director Rowe (35:08): So I'll say, Senator, that obviously somebody is trying to determine where they are in proximity to a location, a fixed location. I'll defer to my colleague here, but I believe it was a recreation or sports-related... I thought I had read that it was a golf range finder. Nonetheless, it still would've provided him the ability to provide the distance that he was away from his intended target.
Mr. Durbin (35:38): Wasn't that enough?
Acting Director Rowe (35:42): As far as raising suspicion?
Mr. Durbin (35:43): Yes.
Acting Director Rowe (35:44): I think he was identified as being suspicious by local law enforcement.
Mr. Durbin (35:49): And nothing happened.
Acting Director Rowe (35:52): Well, I know that local law enforcement was attempting to locate him.
Mr. Durbin (35:56): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Peters (35:59): Thank you. Member Graham.
Mr. Graham (36:02): Thank you. Let's go back to the resources. Do you need more money?
Acting Director Rowe (36:10): Senator, listen, there isn't a single branch or a single agency in the executive branch that needs more money. Everyone would take more resources. We've had a great relationship with the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget.
Mr. Graham (36:26): Do you feel constrained to ask for more resources by anybody?
Acting Director Rowe (36:29): No sir, we don't. And actually, we have a great relationship with our appropriators and obviously the authorizing committees, and they have always looked out for the Secret Service.
Mr. Graham (36:44): So I would encourage you to think big when it comes to resourcing the department in light of what happened here. At the time of the shooting, the Iranians were threatening high-level American officials, including President Trump, right?
Acting Director Rowe (37:00): Senator, it's widely-known-
Mr. Graham (37:02): Is that right, FBI?
Deputy Director Abbate (37:05): Yes, Senator. That's 100% correct.
Mr. Graham (37:07): Did that factor in to the security footprint?
Acting Director Rowe (37:12): So Senator, what I will say is that it is widely-known that the Iranians do not like us. I refer you to the national security-
Mr. Graham (37:20): Well, it's not that they don't like us, they threatened to kill certain people and they named them.
Acting Director Rowe (37:23): Correct, sir. But I can't publicly comment-
Mr. Graham (37:26): It's not like, "I hate America. I'm going to kill these three guys."
Acting Director Rowe (37:29): Right. I cannot publicly comment, sir, on-
Mr. Graham (37:32): Well, they publicly comment on it. It's not what you think-
Acting Director Rowe (37:34): Senator, what I'm trying to say is I cannot publicly comment on what intelligence, but I can assure you that we do a threat-based protective model.
Mr. Graham (37:43): Fair enough. Fair enough. I would like to have that model provided to the committee. Could you do that?
Acting Director Rowe (37:50): Yes, sir.
Mr. Graham (37:51): Could you also give us the protocols that are in place to secure a site like this?
Acting Director Rowe (37:57): Yes, sir.
Mr. Graham (37:58): Okay, thank you. One, the protective detail around President Trump, I know them all very well. They're brave men and women. And these questions is not to belittle anybody. They're trying to find out how the system failed so badly. You say you're not reluctant to ask for more money. What do we need to do to make it easier to hire people without lowering our standards? I know it's a hard job. Can we do anything to help you?
Acting Director Rowe (38:27): So I think we're willing to take that back, sir. And I think we are working on our time to hire. We actually-
Mr. Graham (38:33): If you had more people you'd have more time off.
Acting Director Rowe (38:35): That's true, sir. Yes.
Mr. Graham (38:36): Okay, well let's get more people and more time off. These are tough jobs. People in this committee know.
Acting Director Rowe (38:42): Yes, sir.
Mr. Graham (38:43): I don't know how they hold a family together doing what they're doing. It's the military, really, on steroids. The encrypted app. Paul, can you tell us about these apps, have they been broken into? The guy had some apps that were encrypted.
Deputy Director Abbate (39:00): I think we've experienced a range of returns on this. Some of the applications that he was using online were encrypted in nature. Some of the email accounts-
Mr. Graham (39:10): Have we broken into them?
Deputy Director Abbate (39:12): We've received returns that are some that we have not been able to get information back because of their encrypted nature.
Mr. Graham (39:18): Is there any way to solve that problem?
Deputy Director Abbate (39:22): Senator, we've talked about this before. We need a solution that provides lawful access to law enforcement-
Mr. Graham (39:28): So you're telling me the guy that took eight shots at the president, former president, has apps that we can't get into that may, if you could get into, reveal some relevant information?
Deputy Director Abbate (39:43): That is correct, Senator.
Mr. Graham (39:44): So if he were talking to some foreign power... And I don't think any foreign power would hire this guy, by the way. So I'm not overly worried this was some great plot by the Iranians because they couldn't even think of this. However, there could come a day where something like this is very important. How do we solve this problem?
Deputy Director Abbate (40:04): Senator, as we've been saying, we need a solution that provides lawful access where when we go to a company-
Mr. Graham (40:11): So you're telling me... I agree with you, I'm not blaming you. We have encrypted apps of an assassin, a murderer, and we can't get into them all these days after. That needs to be fixed, folks. I'm all for privacy, but to a point. What if in the future somebody's using these apps to communicate with a foreign power? I think we need to know these things, we need to know them in real time. So lessons learned is that everything failed. Corrective action, seems to me you need more money and more people. Accountability. At the end of the day, how many people do you think will be relieved of their duties, Mr. Rowe, because of this?
Acting Director Rowe (40:52): Senator, I publicly cannot, and I cannot weigh in on that right now.
Mr. Graham (40:56): Sure.
Acting Director Rowe (40:57): Right? It has to be a fair and neutral process, right?
Mr. Graham (41:01): Absolutely. From a fair point of view, would you say this is a major system failure at every turn and those in charge of the system in question, not only was it embarrassing they failed?
Acting Director Rowe (41:16): So Senator, again, if there were policy violations, those individuals will be held accountable and they will be subject to our table of penalties-
Mr. Graham (41:25): Just send us the policies, if you could.
Acting Director Rowe (41:27): Yes sir, we will.
Mr. Graham (41:28): Thank you.
Acting Director Rowe (41:28): But they will be held to our table of penalties, which will include up to termination.
Mr. Graham (41:35): Thank you. Thank you.
Senator Peters (41:37): Director Rowe, in your testimony here today as well as in your written testimony, you said very, very clearly that you can't defend why that building with the shooter on top of it was not better covered. You were very clear you cannot defend that. So my question to you is my understanding is that there's a detailed site survey that is done prior to an event to identify potential threat points. So talk to me about that site survey. I'm sure you've had a chance to look at it now after action and how did that site survey get approved when it was so clear that that was a major threat from that building?
Acting Director Rowe (42:20): Thank you, Senator. So our Pittsburgh field office did the advance. During that advance, not only were they discussing amongst themselves about mitigating the line of sight, but also they were discussing with other agencies that were supporting it. Our counter snipers met with their counterparts. The team lead and team lead met. They walked the site, they identified the AGR building. And if I may, Senator, if I could point out something right now, if I may, and we will place this for the record, but this is the point of view. This is from the second floor of the AGR building. This point of view is the point of view where the counter sniper team locally was posted. The gold arrow indicates where the shooter fired from. (43:21) Looking left, why was the assailant not seen? When we were told that building was going to be covered, that there had been a face-to-face that afternoon, that our team leads met, this was the view. Let me show you another view, Senator. B. This view is a reenactment by one of my agents laying flat. There is a five-inch rise on the middle of that roof. The assailant would've had to present his bore over that to get his shot off. The view underneath reflects the perspective that he would've had. Again, I'd call your attention back to the first exhibit, if they'd have looked left. Give me C. This is what our counter sniper team saw. Shooter, no elbows. You barely make out the crown of his head. (44:55) Below it, the assailant up prone. And let me just tell you, our counter sniper, this individual, I know him. I consider him a friend. He has covered me operationally in conflict zones. And when I did my time on the president's detail, he exemplifies the courage, the skill, and the ability to respond under great stress in such short time to neutralize the threat and prevent further loss of life. Getting back to your question, Senator, these were discussions that were had between the Pittsburgh field office, the local counterparts and everyone supporting that visit that day. And that's why when I laid in that position, I could not and I will not and I cannot understand why there was not better coverage, or at least somebody looking at that roof-line, when that's where they were posted.
Senator Peters (45:58): Director Rowe, the Secret Service stayed local law enforcement were on multiple communication channels is my understanding during that time. And as a result, local law enforcement was only able to call in to a state command center that was then relayed from the Secret Service. There seemed to be a recurring issue in emergency situations that we're finding with the federal government that there's not a seamless way to communicate, particularly if you're relying on local law enforcement to deal with what was clearly a major, major vulnerability. Local law enforcement in Butler told my staff that they had no way of communicating directly with the Secret Service. And if I listened to Mr. Abbate saying there was about a 30 seconds between when the local law enforcement reported that there was a man on the roof with a gun, 30 seconds, if it's communicated directly to a counter sniper team, would that be enough time to react prior to the firing of those shots?
Acting Director Rowe (46:54): Senator, if we'd had that information, they would've been able to address it more quickly. It appears that that information was stuck or siloed in that state and local channel. I will tell you though that our tactical elements did have... Not only did they have embeds from Butler County ESU with them, but they also had radios on the tactical net. It is troubling to me that we did not get that information as quickly as we should have. We didn't know that there was this incident going on and the only thing we had was that locals were working an issue at the three o'clock, which would've been the former president's right-hand side, which is where the shot came. Nothing about man on the roof, nothing about man with a gun. None of that information ever made it over our net.
Senator Peters (47:46): So that will change?
Acting Director Rowe (47:47): Yes, sir. We are working right now to figure out the interoperability and also make sure that we do have access to those channels, whether through the counterpart system or some other means.
Senator Peters (47:58): Very good. Ranking member, Paul, I recognize for your questions.
Dr. Paul (48:01): Director Rowe, I'm encouraged by your attitude and what you brought here today, what you've talked about as far as immediate changes that you've made, and I hope you'll follow through with that. I'm encouraged by the fact that you acknowledge that it's indefensible that the roof was unattended. Would you say the roof being unattended breaches standard protocol for setting up a security perimeter?
Acting Director Rowe (48:22): What I would say, Senator, is that that roof should have had better coverage and we will get to the bottom of if there were any policy violations.
Dr. Paul (48:32): I would think indefensible would go along with breaching protocol and I can't imagine how indefensible would not be breaching protocol. What I would caution, though, is that I sense, and you're the Secret Service and these people are your friends and they are heroic people who do good things, that we can't let our friendships blind us from responsibility. So someone's in charge of the security at the zone. Would the Secret Service be in charge of the entire operation and they work with law enforcement, but they're in charge. The person in charge of the entire operation is the Secret Service, not the local police.
Acting Director Rowe (49:10): You're correct, sir. This is a failure of the Secret Service.
Dr. Paul (49:13): So that's what I mean. And look, I don't wish anybody harm. I appreciate the bravery of the Capitol Hill police. I was at the shooting at the ball field. I've heard a hundred shots coming my way. Fortunately, none came to me. But I appreciate the bravery of all the people who protect us. But there's also the idea that there are certain mistakes that don't make you a bad person, but they're just inexcusable if you made that mistake. So for example, let's say you determine, "Well, local police should have been on there and they told us," and local police says, "No, they didn't tell us to do it." And it's a he-said-she-said. Still ultimately the agent in charge should be walking the grounds and say there's a roof a hundred yards away from the stadium with a clear sight. Someone's got to be on the roof. (49:54) Local police, "I told you to get on the roof, get on the roof," or you put the Secret Service. So ultimately the buck doesn't pass along to somebody, whoever's in charge is in charge. But really I think it would be helpful to all of us... I know the process has to be meted out, but there needs to also be a process for protecting the next Trump rally. The fact that whoever was in charge in Butler next week is not in charge of a rally in Las Vegas. And so I think you really should say that. You should simply say that the leadership from that event is going through a process, but until that process, they won't be in charge of the Democrat National Convention. That would reassure a lot of people that they won't be in charge of security until it's determined. Can you tell us something to that accord?
Acting Director Rowe (50:37): Yes, sir. So I can tell you that the team planning the Democratic National Convention, that is a national special security event. That team has been on the ground, that's from DC with support from our Chicago field office. But I just want to reiterate that our Pittsburgh field office staff, they are wearing this harder than anybody right now in the Secret Service. They feel completely demoralized. And what I'm trying to do is also let them know that, listen, they need to be focused on the mission at hand. I also have to walk a tightrope here and make sure that I am not tainting any future discipline action.
Dr. Paul (51:22): I understand and I have great respect for all the officers, but ultimately someone had to be in charge and someone made a terrible error, and it's an error of judgment. The big error is the roof. But another big error is we have 90 minutes of a suspicious person. Now, Senator Durbin mentioned the rangefinder, none of these are enough to shoot a suspicious person, but they certainly you would think would be enough to stop the proceedings. That's where I think you get to the second major management or judgment error of this. Now, Trump's done probably a hundred rallies like this. How often at one of his rallies are there 90 minutes of looking at one person and at least a half a dozen pictures of that person? How often does that happen? And is it against protocol to a let a proceeding go on when you've got a suspicious person, 90 minutes worth of people talking about this person and we don't stop the proceeding? Does that defy protocol?
Acting Director Rowe (52:17): So Senator, so while there's 90 minutes in total from when he's first identified by local law enforcement, we have about a 30-minute window. But in no time is there anything ever communicated about weapon or harm. And I think that's where the threat-
Dr. Paul (52:33): Not talking about a weapon. A weapon, you shoot people with a weapon.
Acting Director Rowe (52:36): Sure.
Dr. Paul (52:36): Without a weapon, we're talking about people you stop and say... He had a backpack, which was probably big enough to have the AR-15 in it. In all likelihood, the backpack has the weapon in it. So a guy with a big backpack would never get through the perimeter. So once again, a big mistake was not having the perimeter wide enough to prevent people from shooting outside the perimeter. But the thing is, he would've never gotten through the perimeter, right? His backpack would've been checked. (53:01) But people with big backpacks are very suspicious, and I would think he's in scene six times, but you got 20 or 30 minutes of knowing about it. But the thing is, there's all kinds of chatter going on about this, and you would think the chatter going on with the local police is on a police radio, and a policeman with that radio is standing in the control tent so you get that communication. So there's a huge and massive breakdown. But really my question is, how often has this happened at other rallies where there's a half a dozen pictures and 90 minutes of people talking about a suspicious person? I just can't imagine that it's real common.
Acting Director Rowe (53:36): So Senator, at rallies there are people that come to the attention of law enforcement for a variety of reasons. And if they come to our attention for some other activity that might put it a little bit, "Hey, we probably need to go check that individual out." This happens. And that's why we attempt to locate them. That's why it's important for us to try to find them and it's important to have the information. And so local law enforcement did their very level best to try to locate them. They did provide us the photos 30 minutes prior. It just, he evaded any detection by law enforcement.
Dr. Paul (54:14): But once again, it's the overall person in charge. It's a terrible breakdown, it's a terrible management decision not to have stopped it. There was a chance to stop the proceeding. And the question is not whether there's enough information to take down an individual. It's a much lower standard to say, " Hey, we're going to wait until we get this individual." The roof and the 90 minutes of it, both I think are failure of your protocol. And I think when that's determined, the person who made these decisions can't be in a position of authority again.
Senator Peters (54:44): Senator Klobuchar?
Ms. Klobuchar (54:45): Thank you very much. Thank you to all of you for holding this hearing. I appreciated Acting Director Rowe when we had the classified briefing and also today the taking responsibility for the agency and your own personal emotion and reaction to your visit and what had gone wrong. For the people in my state that keep asking me, "I just don't get how he got on the roof," I know we've gone through great details and a lot of examination, could you just give a minute on what went wrong and how you think it can be fixed? Because I think it's just going to help to dispel the conspiracy theories. There are some people that think it didn't really happen, which of course is completely ridiculous. It did. There are some people that think all kinds of conspiracies went on within the government, which is also false. But could you just tell them what went wrong so they understand?
Acting Director Rowe (55:37): Yes. Thank you, Senator. I thought long and hard about this. I think this was a failure of imagination, a failure to imagine that we actually do live in a very dangerous world where people do actually want to do harm to our protectees. I think it was a failure to challenge our own assumptions, the assumptions that we know our partners are going to do everything they can. And they do this every day. But we didn't challenge our own assumptions of, we assume that someone's going to cover that. We assume that there's going to be uniform presence. We didn't challenge that internally during that advance. So moving forward, I've directed that when we're talking to people and we're making requests, we are very specific about what we want. (56:34) We are providing explicit instructions on exactly what our expectation is and what we need them to do and what we want them to do. That's the only way that we're going to be able to move forward beyond this. And let me just tell you that our state and local law enforcement partners are the best. So this belief that somehow they are less than federal law enforcement, or they're less than the Secret Service, they're out there patrolling communities every day. They're the ones out there going into hazardous conditions every day. They know their communities. They have the ability to enforce state and local laws. Our advanced agents do not.
Ms. Klobuchar (57:15): Right.
Acting Director Rowe (57:15): We need them and we need them to be partners with us, and I think we need to be very clear to them and that may have contributed to this situation.
Ms. Klobuchar (57:26): Yeah, appreciate that, and I have the same respect. Next, one of the things you mentioned to me was, and to all of us, was in this other briefing, was just the texting protocol. And I think a lot of us think about this in non-security settings about how people are just texting all the time instead of talking and how it takes our eyes off, in your case, the target. Could you talk about what might've gone wrong there and how you think things could change when the hope is that their eyes are constantly on the scene and on the potential targets and risks?
Acting Director Rowe (58:06): Thank you, Senator. So again, we need people focused on the problem or on their area of responsibility. It was great that there was a text chain, but that communication needs to go over the net. It needs to go over a radio channel so that everyone has situational awareness of it. And the point I was making in the closed-door briefing is that we have to get to a point now where we are using our radio systems to have that collective awareness of this. I think one of the things that I've directed is that in addition to the interoperability, we're going to roll out common operating picture or common operating platform that we utilize for national special security events. We have the ability to roll that out to the field that has a Blue Force tracker in it that's able to... Where you can put... (59:04) Where all your state and local assets are, where our federal assets are. But in addition to that, I want people using the radio. So it's great that the tactical elements are talking to each other. It's great that the shift is talking to each other, but we have to be able to make sure that whenever we come across a situation that everyone has situational awareness of this. And I will take this... In my time when I was operational in the president's detail, we were given the explicit instruction, "Hey, if you're going to pass it, if it's relevant enough that you feel like you need to pass that information, do it over the radio." And that was the protocol that we had. And I think over the years, perhaps with the advent of technology and smartphones, perhaps we've gotten away from that, but we need to get people back on the scope, back on mission, back focused on what they need to be responsible for.
Ms. Klobuchar (59:59): Okay. And the next question I'll put in writing, thank you very much, of you Mr. Abbate, but it's just pointing out that we've seen this rise in threats against members of Congress, which of course is relevant to this. 8,000 just last year, more than four times over the past seven years. Just I'll want to ask you in writing about the steps that the Justice Department is taking to prioritize these cases. I know there's been some changes made.
Deputy Director Abbate (01:00:25): Yes, Senator. It's of our highest priority and we're urgently working on it 24/7 every day to protect each and every one of you here.
Ms. Klobuchar (01:00:34): Appreciate it. Thank you, both of you.
Senator Peters (01:00:36): Senator Carper, recognize for your questions.
Mr. Carper (01:00:37): Thanks very much. Mr. Rowe, Mr. Abbate, thank you for joining us today. I have the privilege of representing Delaware, the first state to ratify the Constitution. We did that over 200 years ago and the Constitution sort of outlines how we elect our leaders and it changes with respect to technology over the years. But for as long as we've been a country threats to our leaders when they pursue elective office, we're going to be gathering some of those. We're going gathering in Chicago in just a few weeks. There's be gathering in other parts of the country to help make sure that what was adopted in that original constitution is actually carried out faithfully. And it's just incredibly important that those who aspire to elective office and those who take on those challenges are protected and their families are protected as well as those who surround them. I share with my colleagues my prayers for those who have been killed or injured on July 13th. We're grateful that one of our presidential candidates is okay, but I have a question about what I still... (01:01:47) I can't get over how a 20-year-old loner, a 20-year-old loner, could somehow outsmart, out-fox two of the smartest federal agencies and state agencies and law enforcement with an odds of a thousand to one and be able to almost pull this off. It just blows my mind. Hopefully we'll get to the truth in all of that. I'm a Navy guy. I spent 20, many years of my life in the Navy. I learned as a midshipman that when the ship runs aground at sea, the commanding officer is held responsible. Whether the commanding officer is awake asleep at the helm, but the commanding officer is held responsible. And I think we have to make... At the end of the day, I'm not interested in a playing game, but I'm sure interested in finding out who was responsible and making sure that they account for their responsibility. My question is, what policies are currently in place to facilitate real-time information sharing between the Secret Service and local law enforcement during an event? And what changes do information sharing practices will the Secret Service make in light of the apparent breakdown in communications on July 13th?
Acting Director Rowe (01:02:57): Thank you for that question, Senator. So we're looking at our procedures. We rely on a counterpart system and the radio interoperability. It is a complex challenge. It's not just about being able to find whatever frequency our local counterparts are on and then just piping it in. There's some technical challenges that have to be there. So to alleviate that, we've always relied on a security room where we have representatives from the local agencies. Those individuals are there to, one, bring their own radio and then relay relevant information that would impact our security plan. I think what I am looking at, and again, in looking at this situation is there was a unified command post and we had our security room and we had communications that day at the Butler Farm site were challenging. (01:04:01) Not just challenging for the Secret Service but challenging for locals. There were some cellular issues, there were radio issues, and you saw that with the testimony from the Colonel from Pennsylvania State Police last week in the house. So I think as I'm thinking about this, I think we need to consider what is our model moving forward, and I think we need to be where the greatest amount of partners are when that information is being discussed. The other thing that I'm looking at is, we need to also make sure that we have redundancies as far as cellular on the ground, or additional repeaters. And so I've directed our chief information officer to do that, and we are rolling assets out now supporting campaign sites. Thank you.
Mr. Carper (01:04:55): Thank you. Thank you for that. Mr. Abbate, quick question. Based on the initial information you've gathered from the investigation, do you believe there were any actions taken by the shooter in the weeks, days or hours leading up to the shooting that should have caused alarm and grabbed the attention of law enforcement?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:05:11): He did not have any interactions with law enforcement leading up to this, Senator. We haven't found anything yet that would've alerted law enforcement or FBI or Secret Service to his intentioned activities in advance of this event. I will note, however, to your prior question, that we do have a very strong relationship, an integrated relationship between FBI and Secret Service and every other federal, state, local agency you can imagine. We have constructs, like the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and Violent Crime Task Forces where we're cross-embedded with each other. And when it comes to this event and others like it, we're always talking in advance. In fact, with respect to this event, we did have a meeting between US Secret Service and FBI in the days leading up to the event to determine, assess whether there was any information
Deputy Director Abbate (01:06:00): ... their intelligence pertaining to a threat against the rally or to former President Trump or anyone else, there was an absence of that in the lead-up specifically. And again, none of us had any information in our holdings with regard to the ultimate shooter.
Sen. Carper (01:06:17): All right, thank you for that. Thanks very much, both of you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:21): Next [inaudible 01:06:22] Senate Judiciary Committee is Senator Grassley.
Sen. Grassley (01:06:25): Mr. Chairman, I'd like to introduce my oversight letters and investigative documents into the record. This is information I've already made public.
Speaker 1 (01:06:35): Without objection.
Sen. Grassley (01:06:36): Okay, thank you. I'd also like to call my colleagues' attention to a legislation that Senator Cortez Masto's and I've introduced. It would require Senate confirmation of the director of the Secret Service. I think this is very important because no other agency has a no-fail mission. Mr. Rowe, in your written testimony, you stated that to prevent similar lapses like the one on July 13th from happening again, you'll ensure every event site security plan is certainly vetted by multiple experienced supervisors before it's implemented. Based on your testimony, the security plan for the Butler event deviated from the Social Security standards. How would vetting by multiple experienced supervisors fix that?
Acting Director Rowe (01:07:35): So, Senator, I think having many eyes on a particular problem set helps. That way, you don't have tunnel vision, you just focus in on one thing. And so that's why I think it's important not only at the field office level, but also at the detail level. And part of what we had started doing with the former president's detail is having them send out site agents, having them send out supervisors. And I think having that collaboration and having additional eyes to examine the problem, we'll make sure that we're not missing anything. And I think I want that surety for myself. And I think-
Sen. Grassley (01:08:18): I think you've answered my question.
Acting Director Rowe (01:08:20): Yes, sir.
Sen. Grassley (01:08:21): Let me go on. Also, to you, in your written testimony, you stated that you, quote, regret that information wasn't passed to Congress and the public sooner and with greater frequency. What's your communication plan going forward to ensure that the American people and Congress are fully informed?
Acting Director Rowe (01:08:41): So, Senator, we just started a rolling production that is bicameral. So we made our first rolling production last week. We made one yesterday. We will continue to do that. And my view is that sunshine is the best disinfectant and we intend to provide information to Congress as it carries out its oversight function.
Sen. Grassley (01:09:07): Okay. Also, to you, I made public documents that show Secret Service deployed a counter unmanned aerial system operator on July the 13th. According to the Secret Service, the drone system was supposed to be operational at 3:00 PM that day. However, we've been told by Secret Service that because of cellular bandwidth problems, it wasn't operational until about 5:20 of that day. If the system was operational, Secret Service would've had the ability to detect the shooter and his own drone use. Why is the Secret Service dependent upon local cellular network? Does the Secret Service have a backup plan in place?
Acting Director Rowe (01:09:53): Yes. Thank you, Senator. And that is something that I briefed in the closed door, and again, something that has cost me a lot of sleep, because of the eventual outcome of the assailant that what if we had geolocated him because that counter UAS platform had been up. It is something that I have struggled with to understand and I have no explanation for it. 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've decided, "This isn't the day to do it because law enforcement just found me flying my drone." (01:10:43) People fly drones all the time on the peripheries of our sites, and we go out and we talk to them and we ascertain what their intentions are. On this day in particular, because of the connectivity challenge, as you noted, there was a delay and he flew his drone at 3:51 approximately. So moving forward, we are leveraging resources from the Department of Homeland Security and others to make sure that we have dedicated connectivity so that we're not reliant on public domain so that we can ensure that whatever assets we have in place, those assets are operational. And that is my commitment to you that we are going to make sure we're going to do that and that is something we're moving out on.
Sen. Grassley (01:11:27): Thank you and I hope that you'll answer some of my other questions in writing.
Speaker 1 (01:11:32): Senator Johnson, recognized for your questions.
Sen. Johnson (01:11:34): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Acting Director Rowe, in our secure briefing last week, I made the point that if you don't want conspiracy theories to spread, you need to provide information. I appreciate these photos today. These things could have been released literally within days, and a whole lot more information as well. So Congress needs to provide oversight. We don't have certain investigatory tools like you have, but what we can do is do interviews. So Acting Director Rowe, did you receive our letter from July 25th requesting interviews with 13 individuals of the Secret Service?
Acting Director Rowe (01:12:11): We are in receipt of that letter, Senator.
Sen. Johnson (01:12:13): And Deputy Director Abbate, have you seen that letter as well? Do you know who we're requesting interviews with?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:12:19): Senator, I have not seen the letter.
Sen. Johnson (01:12:20): Okay. Do you know whether those individuals submitted to interviews with the FBI, Acting Director Rowe?
Acting Director Rowe (01:12:28): We're in the process. Those employees are being interviewed if they have not already been interviewed, sir.
Sen. Johnson (01:12:33): Are those interviews being transcribed?
Acting Director Rowe (01:12:37): The FBI interviews, sir?
Sen. Johnson (01:12:38): Yes. Will we have 302s on those?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:12:42): Yes, Senator. We will-
Sen. Johnson (01:12:44): When will Congress get those 302s? When will we get those transcriptions of those interviews?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:12:48): Senator, I'll take that back and will get those to you as soon as possible-
Sen. Johnson (01:12:51): So Acting Director Rowe, when will those individuals be made available for Congress, for this community to interview them?
Acting Director Rowe (01:12:57): Senator, we'll make them available.
Sen. Johnson (01:12:59): How soon? Because memories are short. They can be influenced by events. We need these transcribed interviews as soon as possible.
Acting Director Rowe (01:13:07): We will get the done, sir.
Sen. Johnson (01:13:10): Does the Secret Service use encrypted communications at events?
Acting Director Rowe (01:13:14): On our radio nets, we do, sir.
Sen. Johnson (01:13:15): Are those memorialized? Are those saved?
Acting Director Rowe (01:13:18): The radio traffic from Butler, we did not have recordings.
Sen. Johnson (01:13:21): Do you normally?
Acting Director Rowe (01:13:23): Not on the road outside of DC or outside of a presidential or vice presidential stop.
Sen. Johnson (01:13:29): So communications between Secret Service agents will not be available like we've gotten the communications from local law enforcement?
Acting Director Rowe (01:13:36): I'm sorry, Senator, but-
Sen. Johnson (01:13:37): So we're not going to be able to get those communications? You didn't save them?
Acting Director Rowe (01:13:40): No, sir.
Sen. Johnson (01:13:41): Which is very unfortunate.
Acting Director Rowe (01:13:43): It is, sir. And moving forward, I've directed that we will now start recording those so that we will have them, moving forward.
Sen. Johnson (01:13:52): And by the way, I'm going to ask for a number of things at the very end to be entered in the record, but one of my preliminary findings is that the Secret Service did not attend the 9: 00 briefing the day of the event. In your testimony, you said that a site briefing was conducted with Secret Service personnel and law enforcement partners supporting the event. Those both can't be true. So local law enforcement do not believe Secret Service was present at the 9:00 briefing. Were they or were they not?
Acting Director Rowe (01:14:17): So, Senator, with respect to the snipers that went on national television and gave an interview and said that they did not get a briefing from the Secret Service, they were supporting through mutual aid and our personnel briefed the tactical team leader that was leading that element that was providing this counter sniper.
Sen. Johnson (01:14:38): Acting Director Rowe, you said that the Secret Service provides explicit instructions to the locals. Were explicit instructions provided to cover the roof of the AGR building and locals just not follow it or were those explicit instructions not provided?
Acting Director Rowe (01:14:53): It's my understanding what was communicated is that the locals had a plan and that they had been there before.
Sen. Johnson (01:14:58): So an awful lot of the chatter and social media has to do with is there a partisanship in the Secret Service providing coverage for some individuals and none for others about Secret Service coverage or additional coverage enhancements being denied. Was there ever requested additional coverage for Mar-a-Lago?
Acting Director Rowe (01:15:20): Senator, we have provided additional resources to the Mar-a-Lago-
Sen. Johnson (01:15:25): Was coverage asked for and denied ever?
Acting Director Rowe (01:15:29): I'll have to research that, Senator, but I'm happy to tell you we have made significant investments. Since the former president has left office, over $4 million of technology resources and alarms.
Sen. Johnson (01:15:43): Documents will come out eventually to make the point one way or the other. This is an important piece of information that Congress needs to have-
Acting Director Rowe (01:15:51): Senator, we'll make those available to you, the investments we've made.
Sen. Johnson (01:15:54): There's a report today by Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics saying that you denied sniper coverage outside of driving distance of DC. Is that true?
Acting Director Rowe (01:16:02): That is a false statement, sir.
Sen. Johnson (01:16:04): That is incorrect?
Acting Director Rowe (01:16:05): That is incorrect.
Sen. Johnson (01:16:06): Okay. That's the kind of information you need to refute with documentation. Deputy Director Abbate, you said this was an assassination attempt and domestic terrorism. It's obviously assassination attempt. Why make the distinction? What is different about that?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:16:26): We think it's important to cover all the possibilities here in the reality of what we're dealing with and what we've all seen, Senator. And we've learned lessons from the past. The tragic shooting at the baseball field was referenced here. We've learned the lesson from that. That was not opened properly and we've made changes in the bureau and it's reflected here in terms of how this investigation is being approached with a completely open mind and inclusive of all the possibilities including domestic terrorism.
Sen. Johnson (01:16:56): I fear that makes investigation potentially partisan. Mr. Chairman, I would like to request that my July 14th letter to Attorney General Garland, Mayorkas, and Ray be entered in the record. It asked for all kinds of information, documentation, asked a lot of questions. My preliminary findings of July 21st and July 23rd, including timelines, a bunch of questions as well, be entered in the record. And then our updated timeline dated today, this goes not only by minute, by second, and we will continue to update this timeline as more information becomes public. This is the way you do investigation. We need to find out literally second by second what happens. So [inaudible 01:17:35] public understands the truth.
Speaker 1 (01:17:37): Without objection. So ordered.
Speaker 2 (01:17:41): Senator Butler?
Sen. Butler (01:17:44): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to both of our chairman and ranking members for holding this incredibly important hearing critically for the American people to understand the safety and security that is being provided to our national leaders. Thank you both for being here and for, again, answering the hard questions. This is a time of, I think, heightened attention, deservedly so, not only for our national leaders, but for the teacher who decides that they're going to go and participate in their democracy or the firefighter who wants to hear the voice and vision of the potential next leader of this country. My thoughts and prayers really are with those Pennsylvania families who have lost loved ones or have been critically injured. (01:18:40) As I offer my questions today, it would be in service to those to... Preventing future incidents. But in the one question of looking backward to the event on the 13th, Director Abbate, can you just talk a little bit about how did Mr. Crooks... How was he able to get an AR-15 onto the roof of that building? Does your investigation illuminate anything that we have learned to help to make that point more clear?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:19:19): We don't have definitive evidence yet as to how he got the rifle up there. Based on everything that's been collected thus far, photos, video, eyewitness accounts, we do believe he likely had it in the backpack.
Sen. Butler (01:19:33): Broken down in the backpack?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:19:34): We're still assessing that. Our laboratory has looked at the rifle itself and measured that against the backpack itself. And if placed in this backpack, it would extend outside. It would've been visible. But we don't have anyone who observed him with the backpack with a rifle barrel or other part of it sticking out of the backpack. But the rifle would not have fit fully into this backpack to be concealed in whole. We have video that was recently found of the shooter walking in a distance from his car just before 6:00 PM, about 5:56, I believe. (01:20:17) And based on everything we have, we assessed that he returned to his vehicle at that time, got the backpack, and then proceeded back to the area, into the AGR building. And then he's observed, of course, on the roof just minutes later holding the backpack in front of him. In fact, there's dashcam footage from a police vehicle that shows him briefly traversing the roof with the backpack in front of him. And then it's just minutes after that that he's actually seen by the officer, who I described, with the rifle on the roof. It's possible that he broke the rifle down, but we don't have conclusive evidence of that and took it out of the bag on the roof in those moments before and reassembled there. That's one of the theories we're looking at and working on right now.
Sen. Butler (01:21:05): Thank you for that. You take me right... Acting Director Rowe, thank you for your years of dedicated service and jumping in in a hot time. But you take me right to this point of communication. There's been a lot of conversation about the... And even in your written and verbal testimony, you have talked a lot about the communication and the disparate nature in which it's happening across the different channels. One foundational question that I have is are all elements of an event communicated on the same channel? If I lost my kid and I'm at a big rally, are local law enforcement talking on the same channel about me losing my kid? That they're talking about a suspicious individual?
Acting Director Rowe (01:21:51): So when it comes to the locals, they likely have some type of common channel that they work off of, in a county or an adjoining municipality. When it comes to the Secret Service, we do have various channels for various agents and our uniformed division officers working specific aspects of that advance.
Sen. Butler (01:22:17): So it's not possible that the delay in communication or losing of the thread of tracking this individual was lost in the commotion of all of the other communications that could have been or maybe was separate from the communication channels that were happening?
Acting Director Rowe (01:22:38): Senator, I can only speak to the Secret Service lines of communication, and we did not have anything beyond suspicious person that was communicated to us.
Sen. Butler (01:22:50): Last question really quickly because I'm out of time, but Acting Director, was there any communication with the Secret Service that was talking directly with the former president's detail? That feels like there's been some question by colleagues about why the call wasn't made to delay the event. Help us understand the communication that either was or was not happening directly with the former president's detail to make the call to delay 10 minutes, 20... We've all been to these events. They never happen on time. But to delay while this was being investigated.
Acting Director Rowe (01:23:32): So the detail, they were operating on their net, which our security room was monitoring. But again, having information of a suspicious individual. There were other calls that day of individuals that came to the attention of law enforcement, of people that needed medical attention. So that particular... Regarding the assailant, that never really rose to a level of, "We should not put them out there." Had we known that there was a dangerous individual out there, we would never let a protectee go out on stage.
Sen. Butler (01:24:14): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 1 (01:24:16): Senator Hassan, recognized for your questions.
Sen. Hassan (01:24:18): Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and Chairman [inaudible 01:24:22] and the ranking members for holding this joint hearing today. And thank you to our witnesses not only for being here, but for your careers of service to our country, and to the men and women you lead. I am really grateful that former President Trump is safe and extend my sympathies to the family of Corey Comperatore who was fatally shot at the rally, and my sympathies to everyone who was injured. (01:24:46) On July 13th, major failures nearly led to the assassination of a presidential candidate who is also a former President of the United States. The Secret Service has to be fully transparent about how this happened and how it's going to change moving forward, understanding there's also a need to balance Congress's engagement in oversight with allowing law enforcement to conduct an ongoing criminal investigation. I want to thank the agents of the Secret Service for selflessly acting to protect elected officials and their families and our former presidents. We're grateful for their sacrifices and their service, and I want to thank all law enforcement, and particularly, law enforcement officers and first responders who worked to minimize harm to the crowd on July 13th. Mr. Rowe, I want to start with you. New Hampshire hosts many political rallies. Protecting the speakers and attendees at these events requires extensive coordination between state and local law enforcement, the Secret Service staff, and obviously campaigns event staff. (01:25:48) As a former governor, I've experienced some of the challenges that this type of coordination can create, but we know that this coordination is really essential to public safety. It's clear that there were significant coordination failures on July 13th. You told us earlier that the local SWAT team told the Secret Service that local law enforcement had eyes on the AGR roof. But there are reports that members of a local SWAT team never met with the Secret Service in the days before the Butler rally. What steps does the Secret Service take prior to political rallies to ensure that the agency is effectively coordinating with the candidate security details with state and local law enforcement and with campaign events staff?
Acting Director Rowe (01:26:31): So as part of the advanced process, Senator, as happened in Butler as well, there's a police meeting, and basically that initiates the advance. That's bringing in all the... Not only emergency management officials, but all the state and local law enforcement agencies that may have aspects of supporting or assisting in that advance and on that visit. The focus of that police meeting, one is to exchange numbers and business cards, and then coordinate times for walkthroughs. There were walkthroughs of the Butler Farm site with local law enforcement agencies that were supporting that visit. And that was directly as a result of having that police meeting to begin the process of figuring out, dividing up the labor, areas of responsibility.
Sen. Hassan (01:27:25): So what you're telling me is that at that meeting, the Secret Service, the first meeting led to the walkthrough that the Secret Service does with local law enforcement and that at least some members of directors of the local SWAT team would've been part of that process?
Acting Director Rowe (01:27:39): Well, as I understand it, the Beaver County, they were secunded to assist Butler, but the Butler ESU team were part of the advanced process.
Sen. Hassan (01:27:51): Okay. How many agents did the Secret Service provide to plan and secure this event and how many people from state and local law enforcement agencies supported the security of this event?
Acting Director Rowe (01:28:01): So in totality, between state and local and federal, there are 155 personnel at the Butler Farm site that day. All combined, Secret Service, it's in the 70s. And then we had support from homeland security investigations that were providing post standards, and then we had approximately 70 or so various Pennsylvania state law enforcement.
Sen. Hassan (01:28:27): Okay, thank you. I want to go to one other issue before my time expires. You've talked today and in our secure briefing about the interoperability of the Secret Service's counter drone capability that it failed early on and so it didn't catch the drone flown over the site by the shooter. First, you've addressed this a little bit, what changes is the Secret Service making to ensure that it has backup technology, but also what efforts did the Secret Service undertake to coordinate with other law enforcement regarding anti-drone capability at the rally site?
Acting Director Rowe (01:29:14): We're working to determine that right now, Senator. We're getting the redundancies in place. Counter UAS authority, it is a little complex. State and locals don't necessarily have this ability to do that. It does require coordination with the FAA because it could impact commercial travel.
Sen. Hassan (01:29:37): Okay, thank you. And Mr. Chair, I'm just going to follow up and I think one of the things that you're hearing from a lot of folks, but I'm not sure we're really clear on yet, is how is it that somebody who clearly is arousing concern from law enforcement isn't identified as suspicious? And how is it that that information doesn't get to the former president's detail? So I'll follow up in writing. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:30:08): Senator Cornyn?
Sen. Cornyn (01:30:13): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Rowe, can you explain why the shooter's drone worked?
Acting Director Rowe (01:30:21): Because there was no counter UAS present, sir.
Sen. Cornyn (01:30:23): Well, you had a drone system, but you had bandwidth problems. The bandwidth apparently was adequate for the shooter's drone, but not for the Secret Service. Can you explain that?
Acting Director Rowe (01:30:36): I have no explanation for it, sir.
Sen. Cornyn (01:30:40): We also know that in the military context, electronic warfare or jamming capabilities are commonly used on the battlefield. Does the Secret Service have jamming capabilities or drones?
Acting Director Rowe (01:30:58): We have drones, sir. And when it comes to... I have to be very careful about how I answer this one in an open forum. What I can tell you is that we have technical security measures, sir, to address I think what you're asking me.
Sen. Cornyn (01:31:12): Well, the question is can you take down a suspicious drone? Because this can be used not only for surveillance by the shooter, which obviously it was here, but also drones can be weaponized and be used as a threat to the president, or in this case, President Trump. Do you have the capacity to stop a weaponized drone?
Acting Director Rowe (01:31:44): What I will tell you, sir, is that we have technical security measures that we utilize at permanently protective sites. We also have the ability in a limited fashion at temporary sites. What I can tell you is that on this day, the counter UAS system had technical difficulties and did not go operational until after 5:00.
Sen. Cornyn (01:32:06): So in this case, the shooter had a rifle, but somebody who wanted to kill a former president or a candidate for president would not need a rifle. They could use a drone. Correct?
Acting Director Rowe (01:32:21): It is a potential threat vector.
Sen. Cornyn (01:32:24): So this individual was identified as a suspicious person. Can you explain to us when a suspicious person becomes identified as a threat?
Acting Director Rowe (01:32:38): Well, I think it's also when a weapon or some other dangerous item is then presented.
Sen. Cornyn (01:32:46): A rangefinder would not render someone a threat as opposed to somebody who was under suspicion?
Acting Director Rowe (01:32:55): I think the rangefinder is what initially brought him to the attention of local law enforcement.
Sen. Cornyn (01:33:03): And why would the president be allowed to take to the stage while a suspicious person had been identified and before the Secret Service or local law enforcement were able to investigate the circumstances?
Acting Director Rowe (01:33:16): So at that time, Senator, suspicion had not risen to the level of threat or imminent harm.
Sen. Cornyn (01:33:23): Well, ultimately, that suspicious person did become a threat. Do you think if the president had been asked not to take the stage and during the time it took to investigate to eliminate that suspicion, wouldn't have been the appropriate way to deal with it?
Acting Director Rowe (01:33:43): Senator, it certainly is one way to do it. This is a challenge for law enforcement in general, is that you identify somebody that comes to your attention and you're trying to determine what are their intentions. This is a challenge for law enforcement. The individual actually came to the attention for suspicion, he's on the outer perimeter adjacent to the secured site, law enforcement is circulating for him. But again, without additional information, at that point, we're not rising to the level yet where perhaps we should pull him off or delay him.
Sen. Cornyn (01:34:28): And I'm just suggesting that maybe, just maybe, President Trump's appearance should have been delayed while that suspicion could be adequately investigated. But I've always thought of the Secret Service as the best of the best when it comes to their willingness to put themselves in harm's way to protect the life of their person they are detailed to, and I think you described the very rigorous process by which people are screened, and I think you mentioned the 2% standard people who are interested in serving only a very small fraction of those individuals are actually accepted in the Secret Service because of the high standards that your agency has. But explain to me why the Secret Service, being an elite law enforcement agency, would delegate to local law enforcement or others who did not meet that same 2% standard. In other words, isn't that something that Secret Service should have covered as opposed to delegating it to local law enforcement?
Acting Director Rowe (01:35:34): So, Senator, again, this is where I went back to earlier when I said it was in a failure to challenge our assumptions. We assume that the state and locals had it. By no means do I want to diminish the commitment. And I'm sure you agree, state and local law enforcement do their jobs every day and protect the communities that you represent.
Sen. Cornyn (01:35:56): No doubt about it.
Acting Director Rowe (01:35:57): So I think what we made an assumption that there was going to be uniform presence out there, that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be counter sniper teams in the AGR building. And I can assure you that we're not going to make that mistake again. Moving forward, I've directed our Office of Protective Operations that when our counter snipers are up, their counter snipers are up and they're on the roof as well. And we do this all the time with our colleagues in the New York City Police Department when we cover the United Nations General Assembly. And so that is our TTP moving forward.
Sen. Cornyn (01:36:37): Director Rowe, I would just submit to you that those assumptions can be lethal.
Speaker 1 (01:36:49): Senator Scott, you're recognized for your questions.
Sen. Scott (01:36:54): Thank you, Chairman. Let me just follow up with what Senator Cornyn has asked. Do you know who makes the drone that the Secret Service uses?
Acting Director Rowe (01:37:03): That Secret Service uses?
Sen. Scott (01:37:04): Yeah, the one that didn't work. Who's the manufacturer? Is it American-made manufacturer?
Acting Director Rowe (01:37:09): I believe it is, Senator. We'll provide that to you in [inaudible 01:37:14], sir.
Sen. Scott (01:37:15): So we talked about this the other day. Very few times in history do our presidents get shot at. So you would know that this is something that the American public is very interested in. So as Senator Johnson said, there's a lot of questions being asked. I was at Church Sunday and three people came up to me and asked me if there was a second shooter. So there's all this information that you guys are not responding to. When I was governor of Florida, I had two mass shootings. I had the Pulse nightclub shooting, I had the Stoneman Douglas shooting, and we did two or three times a day, local, state and federal law enforcement, FBI, everybody involved, we answered questions. (01:38:03) I asked you the other day is why aren't you doing that? What both of you have allowed, you've allowed the public to assume the negative, which I don't get. I think you should been doing all along at least once a day, press conferences. I think that you've got to tell the public what's going on. Having a hearing is really nice. But, I mean, how often are we going to do this? I mean, you're clearly not going to do it here for another month and a half. So I asked you the other day, why aren't you doing press conferences and are you going to commit to doing press conferences? I think what you all have said the other day, you're going to ask Secretary Mayorkas and Director Ray, "If you guys could do those press conferences and start giving the public information?" And what's the answer?
Acting Director Rowe (01:38:58): So, Senator, that's why, one,
Acting Director Rowe (01:39:00): ... I'm here today. I'm here today to provide information and answer those questions. We are moving towards doing more frequent releases of information and we are willing to do that press conference and once we get through this hearing today, we are going to, in all likelihood, do one this week.
Sen. Scott (01:39:19): Okay, so what's the commitment to the public that you're going to do press conference? It's what, 17 days? We are sitting 17 days into this and I'm getting asked questions that I can't believe are true, but the public believes it's true. So what you all are doing is you ruin your reputation, impacting the integrity of the federal government. It makes no sense to me. So are you going to commit to are you going to do it once a month? The FBI, same thing, not just you. What did Director Wray say? Did he say you couldn't do it?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:39:56): Senator, if I may jump in here. First, thank you all for your guidance in this regard. In fact, we haven't done something every day, no doubt about that, but we're focused from the FBI side on the investigation part as we've laid out here today. We actually, based on your guidance, we did a media engagement, not a stand-up type press conference, just yesterday, and laid out in full everything that I've shared here and even beyond that just in the interest of time. But we are, because of the intense interest in this and the implications and the national importance, we've literally provided everything through media and through journalists and hear all of the information that we have derived from the investigation thus far. We remain committed to do that in full, answering any and all questions and sharing any and all information we obtain.
Sen. Scott (01:40:48): Did you guys realize the value of going in front of the press and answering all their questions? You realize that if you don't do it that way, everything gets filtered. You get to put out all the information. You should be providing. You should be every day saying, this is what we know now. Like Senator Johnson put together a timeline. You should have put together a timeline. You should immediately put out this is what we know right now and this is what we don't know. Like you've said, you don't know how the gun got up there, right? You've said it, but that should been out all along. Say we're looking at it, it doesn't make any sense. We've done this, we've done this, we've done this. I just don't get what you doing. I've said this about the FBI. The people that work the FBI people, who work at Secret Service, they're great people. You're a black hole. You lose the support of the American public because people don't believe you're being direct with them. So I completely disagree with your approach. I just want to finish. I've got, like everybody else, I did a letter July 18th. I haven't gotten any answers yet. I want to put it into the record. I'd love to get the answers to this because this is what the public is asking for. They want more information. They want to know what happened, who's going to be held accountable, and how we're going to make sure this never happens again. Thank you.
Dick Durbin (01:42:13): Without objection, it'll be entered in the record.
Sen. Scott (01:42:20): Thanks Mr. Chairman.
Richard Blumenthal (01:42:21): Senator, thank you for being here to both of you and more important thank you for your professional dedication, your personal bravery, and your devotion to the ideals of law enforcement. I know for both of you, this moment is a painful one. Acting director role, I've heard you speak in a private setting very emotionally and passionately about the need to take responsibility and take action that will assure accountability and I know that you share a commitment, along with Director Abbate, to full public disclosure to the maximum extent possible. We can make speeches at you and I've made one myself in that private setting about the need for broader fuller disclosure to the public, not just in press conferences, but in the course of your investigation about what you know and feel you can disclose without compromising your investigation. Let me ask you, last week, Senator Peters, and Paul, along with Senator Johnson and myself sent requests to both of your agencies to produce documents. We've only received a handful so far. Can you commit to when we can expect those documents?
Acting Director Rowe (01:43:44): We will get them to you as quickly as we can, Senator, and we're-
Richard Blumenthal (01:43:47): Can we expect them this week?
Acting Director Rowe (01:43:48): We will work to meet that deadline, sir.
Richard Blumenthal (01:43:53): And when can we expect all the communications, the text messages that agents have sent to each other? Eventually all of it is going to come out, as you know, when can we expect all of those documents?
Acting Director Rowe (01:44:11): We will gather them up and get them to you. Senator,
Richard Blumenthal (01:44:16): You, I think, took the position as to the local law enforcement responsible for the shooter on the roof, the snipers that were in place, that it was their job to take him out, but ultimately doesn't the buck stop with the Secret Service?
Acting Director Rowe (01:44:50): It stops with us, sir. But let me just clarify, the perspective that they had on that roof, when I show you the perspective from what our sniper saw, he's on the downside of that ridge roof. Their perspective from the AGR building, looking out, their area of responsibility, looking left, they should have been able to see. You can see in that photo, in Exhibit A, which we will make part of the record and turn over to the committee, he's already crossed over that bridge or the walkway and stepped up onto that roof. I'm not saying that they should have neutralized him, but if they'd have just held their post and looked left maybe, and there's a lot of maybes there, Senator-
Richard Blumenthal (01:45:43): A lot of maybes. But somebody needs to be held accountable and I think Senator Graham hit the nail on the head. We need to know who specifically was responsible for doing what. Who was responsible for saying to former President Trump, sir, it's not safe to go out there yet? Who was responsible for making sure that those local law enforcement were doing their job? Who was responsible for tracking down that suspicious person who fit the profile, 10 to 25 years old, young male? The FBI has warned us about it year after year after year. Director Wray has come before us and said the threat is from domestic extremism, the lone gunman. We're all aware of it in law enforcement. So I think we need individual accountability here and people need to be held responsible, in fact lose their jobs, if necessary, to send a message that this massive intelligence and surveillance failure, as well as the enforcement failure cries out for accountability. Let me just ask in the short time I have left, what is the nature of the Iran threat?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:47:25): I'm sorry, Senator, could you repeat the question?
Richard Blumenthal (01:47:27): What is the nature of the Iran threat, the threat to former President Trump that has been mentioned?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:47:37): Let me be clear here. The terrorist regime of Iran have been targeting people our country for many, many years now. We've talked about that here before. I want to be clear about that from the FBI standpoint we have, we know publicly they've targeted former President Trump. They've called for his assassination along with other current former government officials. That's public information. It is well known to everyone.
Richard Blumenthal (01:48:06): Was there a specific or imminent threat on July 13th?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:48:13): We have no information that there are any co-conspirators, foreign or domestic, including Iran, related to this. But I want to be clear, we have no evidence of that. We're not ruling anything out. We're looking into all possibilities and leaving our minds open to that.
Richard Blumenthal (01:48:29): Was that on the minds of the Secret Service on July 13th, that there might be some threat from Iran?
Acting Director Rowe (01:48:38): Sir, as Deputy Director Abbate just said, we're aware of the public sentiment and statements of the government of Iran to do harm to Donald J. Trump and we use a threat-based model.
Richard Blumenthal (01:48:52): Thank you. Thanks Mr. Chairman.
Dick Durbin (01:48:54): Senator Ossoff, you are recognized for your questions.
Jon Ossoff (01:48:57): Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for your testimony today and for your service. Mr. Rowe, I want to begin discussing Secret Service Staffing and the extent to which HSI or other personnel are augmenting or backfilling inadequate Secret Service capacity generally and on the day of the assassination attempt. To what extent are HSI personnel, for example, filling close protection roles that would normally or optimally be filled by Secret Service personnel?
Acting Director Rowe (01:49:29): So thank you Senator for that question. So as we have done, even back when we were with Treasury, we enlist, during campaign years, the assistance of other law enforcement agencies in that department. So when we were in Treasury, we used ATF, we used IRSCI. When we transferred over to the Department of Homeland Security, we have brought that practice with us. So going into a campaign year or during a national special security event like the United Nations General Assembly, we will enter into a memorandum of assistance for the campaign with HSI. HSI will provide post standards, essentially federal agents, law enforcement, to be able to help secure a site when it comes to close protection. The only time that we will utilize them is during a United Nations General Assembly where they may be utilized to protect a low-level head of state or provide security at a hotel in New York City where those protectees are staying.
Jon Ossoff (01:50:32): So on the day in question, all of the former president's close protection detail were full-time Secret Service personnel?
Acting Director Rowe (01:50:43): They were and they were assigned to the Donald Trump detail.
Jon Ossoff (01:50:47): Okay. Interoperability with other federal and state and local law enforcement agencies, specifically on communications, what have you determined to date played a role in failures to swiftly communicate between agencies the suspicion or identification of a threat?
Acting Director Rowe (01:51:18): Well, I think there was a delay in reporting. Not having that real time. So as they were closing in on him, as information is known as-
Jon Ossoff (01:51:26): Be more specific, when who were closing in on him?
Acting Director Rowe (01:51:28): As local law enforcement were closing in on him, as he's seen scurrying across the roof, that information. We're getting to the bottom of that. We're working on trying to figure out what was the delay, why didn't we hear that coming out of the unified command? So based on the information I have right now, what I can tell you, Senator, is that apparently not having that real-time information is what really hindered us in being able to understand more than it was just the locals working an issue at the 3:00. There was actually a little bit something more urgent than that.
Jon Ossoff (01:52:05): Does it appear that that is due to a lack of communications links between relevant officials and agencies or poor communications practices and a failure to report?
Acting Director Rowe (01:52:20): I don't want to roll out, I want to have a neutral opinion on that. So I don't know if it was poor practices. I can tell you that the interoperability, not being able to have that technical fix, which is a lofty goal to be able to do that, is something that has been a hindrance. But that's why we use a counterpart system.
Jon Ossoff (01:52:43): So there in fact is not the capability when an intergovernmental inter-agency team is deployed to secure a site like this and to mount, if necessary, a quick reaction. There is not currently the capability, for example, state law enforcement, SWAT personnel or local law enforcement officers to communicate directly with Secret Service officers on site?
Acting Director Rowe (01:53:11): So technically you could do it, but it would take a long time to get it done. For a one day or an eight-hour operation, it requires a lot and it would be months of planning of knowing that we are going to go to this particular jurisdiction and that we're going to need your frequencies, the keys, and we're going to need to load you into our radios and you're going to be needed to load it into ours and vice versa.
Jon Ossoff (01:53:35): Right. Well this presents potentially I think an opportunity for the Homeland Security Committee. I mean not just in an executive protection context, but any complex incident response, any counterterrorism, any natural disaster context, the inability swiftly to link personnel from disparate jurisdictions at the local, state and federal level is a vulnerability for the nation, is it not?
Acting Director Rowe (01:53:58): I would think, and based on my experience, being able to talk to other agencies in real time certainly would assist in that response.
Jon Ossoff (01:54:06): Mr. Chairman, do I have time for one more question?
Dick Durbin (01:54:07): No. Yes.
Jon Ossoff (01:54:09): Thank you. I know others have touched on this. One of the things that's been most baffling to the public has been the failure to fully secure this structure, which even to a layperson's uninformed eye, clearly presents as a site from which an attack on the former president at this event could be mounted and it had particular characteristics that made it even more of potential value to an attacker. Just walk us through one more time, is there not an established doctrine or practice or checklist by which such sites are assessed for threat and determine whether or not to be within or without of the security perimeter?
Acting Director Rowe (01:54:58): Senator, controlling high ground is something that is a must for us whenever we go into a location.
Jon Ossoff (01:55:07): Well, I know we're all eager for more information on why that task was not completed in this case. Thank you for your testimony.
Dick Durbin (01:55:15): Thank you, Senator Ossoff. Senator Lee.
Mike Lee (01:55:19): Why was President Trump allowed to take the stage at 6:02 PM. Exactly 17 minutes after multiple suspicious person reports were provided complete with photos and information suggesting that the assailant had a rangefinder, something that ordinary people don't use in this kind of circumstance.
Acting Director Rowe (01:55:39): Senator. Again, it was suspicion, not weapon, or there was never communication of that there was an individual with a gun or threat or other bad intentions.
Mike Lee (01:55:48): How many suspicious person reports did you receive that day?
Acting Director Rowe (01:55:52): I'll get back to you on the exact number, but there were other individuals that came to the attention of law enforcement that day.
Mike Lee (01:55:57): Would President Biden ever be allowed on stage under similar circumstances with an unresolved set of multiple suspicious person reports provided, including indicating that there was a rangefinder involved?
Acting Director Rowe (01:56:09): Senator, I can tell you that a suspicious person on the outer perimeter with local law enforcement attempting to locate would happen. But I would need more information as far as whether or not we would allow the president to go on or off. Again, for us, it comes down to weapon, a potential threat, is the individual carrying an IED? Is there a weapon? Is there some other factor that now ramps up our attention to-
Mike Lee (01:56:39): Understood.
Acting Director Rowe (01:56:39): ... let's hold off on this.
Mike Lee (01:56:41): If there were eight shell casings found next to the assailant's body, but he was neutralized after the first shot, where did those other shots come? Where did the other shots go?
Acting Director Rowe (01:56:52): As far as the assailant's shooting?
Mike Lee (01:56:54): Yes. So did the assailant get out eight shots or were those shell casings left from the day before or where did they come from?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:56:59): The shooter, Senator, we believe fired eight rounds. We had the shooting reconstruction team go out there for a period of days and collect all that. So we have bullet holes, bullet fragmentation, all taken back and we're still putting together the trajectory and ballistic analysis, although we do have fragments of the bullets and bullets have been collected in the distance from the shooter as well.
Mike Lee (01:57:21): Gotcha. It's my understanding there was a sniper team assigned to a window with complete overlook, complete view of the roof, the same sloped rooftop where the shots were fired. It's also my understanding, according to some whistleblower accounts, that that post was abandoned. What can you tell me about that? Why was it abandoned?
Acting Director Rowe (01:57:43): So I saw that from the colonel's testimony, sir, and it's something that I've asked and our mission assurance is getting to the bottom of. There were two two-man counter sniper teams from the locals that were in that AGR building.
Mike Lee (01:57:58): And so at some point they just left?
Acting Director Rowe (01:58:02): I don't have an answer for you on that, Senator, but it seems to me that if even one of them left, there should have been remaining some additional eyes left in that building.
Mike Lee (01:58:11): Yep. That seems like something that maybe should be one of the very first questions you address. I'm actually surprised that you don't know that already. I'd ask that you submit to us in writing what you learn as soon as you learn it. Will you commit to that?
Acting Director Rowe (01:58:22): Yes, sir.
Mike Lee (01:58:23): What can you tell me about... Well, let me just state this this way. Multiple requests were made by Trump's protective detail and by Trump's campaign team to the Secret Service for additional resources. I'm told that those were denied. As I recall, the Secret Service spokesperson initially denied that such requests were made and denied. Why not tell the truth from the outset? What were they trying to do there?
Acting Director Rowe (01:58:52): So Senator, I don't think there was any intention to mislead.
Mike Lee (01:58:56): Seems like a pretty material fact, isn't it? Will you-
Acting Director Rowe (01:58:59): I saw that report... Go ahead Senator.
Mike Lee (01:59:01): Will you commit to me that you will submit to us in writing what requests were made by whom and to whom and when they were denied?
Acting Director Rowe (01:59:09): I will, sir.
Mike Lee (01:59:10): Okay. Look, at the end of the day, we're looking at a situation in which, at a minimum, people knew that this guy had a gun at least two minutes before the shooting happened. I want to know what you can tell me about what happened during that final two-minute period where a whole bunch of people in the crowd saw and were shouting, he's got a gun. During that two-minute period, perhaps at the beginning of it, the local police started to climb the rooftop. There was at least 30 seconds after which local police were to personally observe the shooter with a gun, had the gun pointed at him. What happened during that time period and why on earth was President Trump not removed from the stage at that moment?
Acting Director Rowe (02:00:00): So again, Senator, the reason why President Trump was not removed was again, we did not have anything more than locals working an issue at the 3:00. Wasn't determined as to whether or not it was the same individual or not, and there was no report of what-
Mike Lee (02:00:17): The same individual as what?
Acting Director Rowe (02:00:18): The same suspicious individual.
Mike Lee (02:00:20): Right, but we've left the category of suspicious individual at that point. You've got a guy with a gun on a rooftop, 136 yards away from the stage, you know that he's got a gun at that point. What happened during that time period that did not result in President Trump, his protective detail being notified of that, and him immediately being removed from the situation?
Acting Director Rowe (02:00:43): Senator, what I will say, and then I'll turn it over to Deputy Director Abbate. No information regarding a weapon on the roof was ever passed to our personnel.
Mike Lee (02:00:56): How is that even possible? Do you want to comment to that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:01:02): Senator, again, I believe that information, and this is probably something my colleague can expound on, information that was in law enforcement, local law enforcement channels, but did not cross over and make it to Secret Service awareness.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:01:21): Senator, just to clarify the timeline. So the individual was first seen by law enforcement on the roof at about 6:08 PM. We're still working to perfect the timeline based on the radio comms and all that. It wasn't until at 6:11:03 PM seconds the officer saw him and called out his arm. That was the first sighting where he had the rifle on the roof and then he-
Mike Lee (02:01:45): And that was relayed to the Secret Service Command Center, at that point.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:01:48): My understanding is no. Secret Service, it was not relayed to them. It's a narrower timeframe though. It's probably about maybe up to half a minute between the time he's seen with the rifle and when the shots are fired.
Mike Lee (02:02:02): But there's still time. At that point, if there were an open channel of communication in which they were able to tell him he's got a gun, take him out. You could still take President Trump off the stage. You could have him duck. You could have the shooter neutralized. Do you not have a channel of communication by which they can say, gun, take him out?
Acting Director Rowe (02:02:25): So again, Senator, that information stayed in local channels and did not make it over to Secret Service.
Mike Lee (02:02:33): Did they not consider that relevant?
Acting Director Rowe (02:02:36): [inaudible 02:02:37], sir.
Mike Lee (02:02:37): You're saying that the local police didn't consider that relevant enough to pass along to the Secret Service?
Acting Director Rowe (02:02:43): Sir, I think that they were in the midst of dealing with a very critical situation and they articulated that over the radio, as I understand it. However, it was never relayed over to us.
Dick Durbin (02:02:56): Thank you Senator Lee. Senator Hawley.
Josh Hawley (02:03:00): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Rowe, can you put your first poster, your first demonstrative back up. Please put A up please. Just make sure everybody can see it. This is the photograph I believe that you took, your team took of the roof, the AGR roof? Yeah, that's the one. Okay, so from this vantage point, as the law enforcement who are in those windows, as they look left, they should be able to see the shooter. Clearly they're on the AGR second floor roof. My question is why is there not a Secret Service counter sniper.
Acting Director Rowe (02:03:33): So Senator, when we post up, our methodology is to look out, look at things that can see in on our protectees so that they can provide that coverage.
Josh Hawley (02:03:45): But why is there not a Secret Service counter sniper there with clear line of sight? That roof has a clear line of sight to the former president. Why didn't you put a Secret Service counter sniper there?
Acting Director Rowe (02:03:56): The Secret Services counter sniper role is to neutralize those threats that are looking in on us from where the protectee is not necessarily this position.
Josh Hawley (02:04:07): You think maybe you might want to revise that protocol in light of what happened?
Acting Director Rowe (02:04:10): They were protecting the principal and I think in the-
Josh Hawley (02:04:14): The principle got shot.
Acting Director Rowe (02:04:16): I understand that, sir.
Josh Hawley (02:04:17): So do you think you might want to revise the protocol? Let me ask you this. Who was the lead site agent who made the decision to leave the AGR building completely outside of the security perimeter? Who was that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:04:28): Senator, I cannot give you that name. This person is operational. They're still doing investigations, they're still doing protective visits.
Josh Hawley (02:04:34): Have they been relieved of duty?
Acting Director Rowe (02:04:36): Senator, they have not been relieved duty.
Josh Hawley (02:04:38): I know their name by the way. Why have they not been relieved of duty?
Acting Director Rowe (02:04:41): They are still cooperating, not only being interviewed by the FBI but also by our office of professional responsibility. We will let the facts of the mission assurance and any further investigations play out.
Josh Hawley (02:04:55): 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 that building should not be in the security perimeter probably ought to be stepped down?
Acting Director Rowe (02:05:10): Senator, I think you're using the word decided and I think we need to allow the investigation play out to include-
Josh Hawley (02:05:18): Okay, so Who did make the decision then? If it wasn't the lead site agent who made the decision not to put that in the security perimeter?
Acting Director Rowe (02:05:24): Senator, you're zeroing in on one particular agent. I want to find out exactly what was the entire decision process. So I think 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.
Josh Hawley (02:05:40): Well, sure. My question is why don't you relieve everybody of duty who made bad judgment? So yeah, you're right, I am zeroing in on somebody. I'm trying to find somebody who's accountable here. So you're telling me that the person who made the decision not to include this in the perimeter has not been relieved of duty, what about the person who is in charge of the interoperability of radio frequencies between local law enforcement and Secret Service? Has that person been relieved of duty?
Acting Director Rowe (02:06:04): No, Senator, because interoperability is a greater challenge than just one person on that day. We had a counterpart system. It failed spectacularly.
Josh Hawley (02:06:17): As the person who decided who made the decision to send Donald Trump onto stage knowing that you had a security situation, has that person been relieved of duty?
Acting Director Rowe (02:06:24): No sir. They haven't because-
Josh Hawley (02:06:25): Has the person who decided not to pull the former president off of stage when you knew that in your words the locals were working a serious security situation, has that person been relieved of duty?
Acting Director Rowe (02:06:34): No sir. Again, I refer you back to my original answer that we are investigating this through a mission assurance and as opposed to zeroing in on one or two individuals-
Josh Hawley (02:06:43): What more do you need to investigate to know-
Acting Director Rowe (02:06:44): ... we want to find out exactly what the decision-making process was.
Josh Hawley (02:06:46): What more do you need to investigate to know that there were critical enough failures that some individuals ought to be held accountable? I mean, what more do you need to know?
Acting Director Rowe (02:06:53): What I need to know is exactly what happened and I need my investigators to do their job. I cannot-
Josh Hawley (02:06:59): A lot of people didn't do their jobs.
Acting Director Rowe (02:07:01): I cannot put my thumb on the scale otherwise-
Josh Hawley (02:07:04): What do you mean put your thumb on the scale?
Acting Director Rowe (02:07:05): ... the objective... You're asking me, Senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing. I acknowledge this was a failure of the Secret Service.
Josh Hawley (02:07:13): Is it not prima facie that somebody has failed? A former president was shot.
Acting Director Rowe (02:07:17): Sir, this could have been our Texas school book depository. I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days. Just like you have.
Josh Hawley (02:07:24): The fire somebody to hold them accountable.
Acting Director Rowe (02:07:27): 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 unfairly persecuted.
Josh Hawley (02:07:40): Unfairly persecuted? We have got people who are dead.
Acting Director Rowe (02:07:41): Unfairly, sir, have to be able to have a proper investigation into this, Senator.
Josh Hawley (02:07:48): 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. I would just say to you, I don't really care that much about your protocols. I think if your protocols don't provide for the fact that when a former president is shot, when an American is killed, when other rally goers, innocent people who just showed up on the day when they are shot at and critically wounded, if that isn't a protocol violation, prima facie, you should revise your protocols.
Acting Director Rowe (02:08:14): Senator, I think this is where you and I agree. This was a failure and we will get to the bottom of it.
Josh Hawley (02:08:19): Well, I hope you're going to do something about it. Let me ask you something else. The RealClearPolitics reports this morning that you were directly involved in denying additional security resources and personnel, including counter snipers, not just to this event, but over the last two years. That President Trump's team repeatedly asked for these additional resources and you personally were involved in denying them. Is that true?
Acting Director Rowe (02:08:43): Senator, as I stated earlier, that is not true.
Josh Hawley (02:08:45): So you never denied any resources to former President Trump's team?
Acting Director Rowe (02:08:49): No, not me. No, sir. Not personally.
Josh Hawley (02:08:51): You weren't involved in any of that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:08:53): No, sir.
Josh Hawley (02:08:53): You were never involved in the decision-making?
Acting Director Rowe (02:08:56): No, sir. I was not.
Josh Hawley (02:08:57): Let me ask you this one or two other things here quickly. Well, whistleblowers tell me that in fact law enforcement were stationed to be on that roof and that law enforcement abandoned their post because it was too hot. Is that accurate?
Acting Director Rowe (02:09:10): Senator, I have heard that as well. Again, they posted up inside. I think, moving forward, as I said earlier, we're going to ensure that state and local counter snipers are on roofs.
Josh Hawley (02:09:22): But do you know if someone was supposed to be on the roof? Do you know if someone was, in fact... That's what the whistleblowers tells me, that may or may not be accurate, do you know that to be the fact? Was somebody posted to the roof local law enforcement or whomever?
Acting Director Rowe (02:09:33): I do not know that to be a fact.
Josh Hawley (02:09:35): Well, can I ask you why you don't know that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:09:39): Again, Senator, we are looking at this. They should have been on that roof and the fact that they were in the building is something that I'm still trying to understand.
Josh Hawley (02:09:50): I just want to express my frustration, Director, that 17 days, or whatever it's been, that whistleblowers are telling us more than you are and you don't know, you haven't ascertained if there was supposed to be law enforcement on the roof. That seems like a pretty basic fact. I'm also told that local law enforcement suppliers offered the Secret Service drones and you declined them. Is that true?
Acting Director Rowe (02:10:11): So Senator, one, I've been very transparent and forthcoming there-
Josh Hawley (02:10:16): Your agency has not been transparent and forthcoming, so please, let's not go there.
Acting Director Rowe (02:10:21): I have been forthcoming, sir.
Josh Hawley (02:10:23): That remains to be seen. You've been on the job a few days so far. You fired nobody. Now, the drones.
Dick Durbin (02:10:29): Thank you, sir.
Josh Hawley (02:10:30): Were you offered drones?
Dick Durbin (02:10:30): Senator Hawley.
Acting Director Rowe (02:10:31): There was an offer to fly a drone on that day.
Josh Hawley (02:10:33): And why did you deny it?
Acting Director Rowe (02:10:35): Again, I think the ability of local law enforcement to provide an asset, we probably should have taken them up on it if it was offered.
Dick Durbin (02:10:44): Senator Cruz.
Ted Cruz (02:10:47): Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Rowe, thank you for being here. I agree with what you said at the outset that the individual Secret Service agents demonstrated remarkable personal courage putting their bodies in between the line of sight of the shooter and the president. That being said, the bravery of the line agents is quite different from the decisions of Secret Service leadership. Secret Service leadership committed catastrophic security failures. Indeed, the worst security failures for the Secret Service since 1981, since the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. It is incumbent upon this committee to determine why those security failures happened. (02:11:34) Just after the shooting, Secret Service put out an official statement from your spokesperson that says, "There's an untrue assertion that a member of the former president's team requested additional security resources and that those were rebuffed. This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo." Was this tweet accurate?
Acting Director Rowe (02:11:59): With respect to Butler,
Acting Director Rowe (02:12:00): ...Pennsylvania. It is accurate sir.
Ted Cruz (02:12:03): It is accurate that the Trump team had not asked for additional security and had not been rebuffed?
Acting Director Rowe (02:12:11): If you're talking about Butler, Pennsylvania, all assets requested were approved. If you're talking about the media reporting of assets requested, there were times when assets were unavailable and not able to be filled and those gaps were staffed with state and local law enforcement tactical assets.
Ted Cruz (02:12:32): So I'm reading from The Washington Post, July 20th, 2024. "Secret Service said to have denied requests for more security at Trump events." The opening paragraph, "Top officials at the U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied requests for additional resources and personnel sought by Donald Trump's security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination, according to four people familiar with the requests. Is that right, that repeatedly the Trump detail asked for more resources and repeatedly secret service leadership turned that down?
Acting Director Rowe (02:13:02): That is not accurate, Senator. Assets are requested. There's a process that is made and-
Ted Cruz (02:13:09): How many requests did the Trump team or the Trump detail ask for?
Acting Director Rowe (02:13:13): I can get you that number in a-
Ted Cruz (02:13:16): You don't know now?
Acting Director Rowe (02:13:16): No, I can speak to the ones that reported in The Washington Post and we can go through them if you like.
Ted Cruz (02:13:21): But you don't know how many requests there were?
Acting Director Rowe (02:13:25): In general, how many requests since 2021 that the former Trump detail has made a request for assets?
Ted Cruz (02:13:30): You've had two weeks. You had a spokesperson put something out that is false on its face. By the way, did you approve this statement when it went out?
Acting Director Rowe (02:13:37): I don't know if I did or didn't, Senator.
Ted Cruz (02:13:40): Has this spokesperson, is he still employed? Does he still have a job?
Acting Director Rowe (02:13:42): He is still employed, Senator.
Ted Cruz (02:13:43): So he lied on behalf of the Secret Service. He still has a job. Did your predecessor, the former director, did she approve this statement?
Acting Director Rowe (02:13:50): Senator, our comms team, they send out statements. They do deconflict them and they put them out.
Ted Cruz (02:13:58): Did she approve this statement?
Acting Director Rowe (02:14:00): I don't know if she did or did not, Senator.
Ted Cruz (02:14:02): And you don't know if you did either?
Acting Director Rowe (02:14:03): I don't recall approving it, Senator.
Ted Cruz (02:14:09): Will you commit to provide this committee in writing every written request for additional resources from the Trump campaign or the Trump detail and every response from Secret Service?
Acting Director Rowe (02:14:21): Senator, I will commit to providing responses and getting you the information that you are seeking.
Ted Cruz (02:14:29): May I ask you something? And who makes the decision to deny those requests? Did you make that decision?
Acting Director Rowe (02:14:35): Which request, sir? Are you talking about the ones that were in the-
Ted Cruz (02:14:37): Any of them.
Acting Director Rowe (02:14:37): ...The Washington Post?
Ted Cruz (02:14:38): Yes.
Acting Director Rowe (02:14:39): The processor is that a 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 between our offices of-
Ted Cruz (02:14:53): Okay, so there's a bureaucracy. Is there a decision-maker?
Acting Director Rowe (02:14:56): It's not a bureaucracy, Senator, it's a process.
Ted Cruz (02:14:57): Give me the person that's a decision-maker. Is there one?
Acting Director Rowe (02:15:01): Senator, it's a conversation. It's not just an absolute yay or nay.
Ted Cruz (02:15:05): So let me tell you what I believe. I believe that the Secret Service leadership made a political decision to deny these requests and I think the Biden Administration has been suffused with partisan politics. Did the same person who denied the request for additional security to President Trump also repeatedly deny the request for security to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father was murdered by an assassin and whose uncle was murdered by an assassin? Did the same person make that decision?
Acting Director Rowe (02:15:33): Senator, what I will tell you is that Secret Service agents are not political-
Ted Cruz (02:15:37): Okay, you're not answering my-
Acting Director Rowe (02:15:39): ...and nor do they allow-
Ted Cruz (02:15:39): But you know what? Leadership appointed-
Acting Director Rowe (02:15:39): I'll get to your answer, Senator, if you allow me to.
Ted Cruz (02:15:42): ...leadership appointed by the President is political. I have a simple question, yes or no? Did the same person deny the Trump request that also denied the RFK request? That's a yes or no question.
Acting Director Rowe (02:15:54): Senator, that is not a yes or no question. One, there is a process for a candidate nominee to receive protection.
Ted Cruz (02:16:03): Does the buck stop anywhere?
Acting Director Rowe (02:16:03): That is a bicameral-
Ted Cruz (02:16:07): Does the buck stop anywhere?
Acting Director Rowe (02:16:07): That is a bicameral, bipartisan process that The Hill participates in.
Ted Cruz (02:16:07): It's a bicameral bipartisan process. What camerals?
Acting Director Rowe (02:16:09): For a candidate-
Ted Cruz (02:16:10): You are not Congress, you don't have a cameral.
Acting Director Rowe (02:16:13): Mr. Kennedy submitted a request that was referred over to the CPAC.
Ted Cruz (02:16:17): Okay, you're refusing to answer the question. Let me ask because the failures on that day were catastrophic. By the way, is it true that on the day of the Butler event that Secret Service transferred agent from President Trump to the First Lady?
Acting Director Rowe (02:16:31): No sir, that's not true.
Ted Cruz (02:16:33): That's been widely reported.
Acting Director Rowe (02:16:35): It's not true. There was one airport agent that actually went on the manpower request for the Trump detail. They handled the arrival at the airport for the First Lady and-
Ted Cruz (02:16:42): What was the relative size of the Trump detail compared to the detail that is assigned to the President or the First Lady?
Acting Director Rowe (02:16:50): Senator, the former president travels with a full shift just like the President.
Ted Cruz (02:16:55): So the exact same size, is that your testimony? That President Trump had the same size detail that President Biden has?
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:01): On the day of in Butler, the agents surrounding him? It is the same number of agents surrounding the President today. There is a difference between a sitting president who also not only has-
Ted Cruz (02:17:11): Hold on, you're using president in a way that is not clear. Is it your testimony that in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump had the same number of agents protecting him that Joe Biden has at a comparable event?
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:24): I'm telling you the shift, the close protection shift surrounding-
Ted Cruz (02:17:27): That's a yes or no.
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:28): That's what you asked me, Senator, and I'm trying to answer it.
Ted Cruz (02:17:30): You are not answering it. Is it the same number of agents or not?
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:34): Senator, there is a difference between the sitting president of the United States-
Ted Cruz (02:17:38): Then what's the difference?
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:39): The difference-
Ted Cruz (02:17:40): 2X, 3X, 5X, 10X?
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:41): National Command Authority to launch a nuclear strike, sir-
Ted Cruz (02:17:44): I'm not asking-
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:45): ...there are other assets-
Ted Cruz (02:17:46): How many more agents?
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:47): ...that travel with the President that the former president will not get-
Ted Cruz (02:17:50): Sir, sir, you are refusing to answer-
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:51): ...but the number of Secret Service agents protecting him-
Ted Cruz (02:17:53): Sir, stop interrupting me. Stop interrupting me.
Acting Director Rowe (02:17:55): Go ahead, Senator.
Ted Cruz (02:17:56): You are refusing to answer clear and direct questions. I am asking the relative difference in the number of agents between those assigned to Donald Trump and those assigned to Joe Biden. I'm not asking why you assign more to Joe Biden. I'm asking is the difference, is it 2X? Is it 3X? Is it 5X? Is it 10X?
Acting Director Rowe (02:18:16): Senator, I will get you that number so you can see it with your own eyes.
Speaker 3 (02:18:19): Senator Marshall, you're recognized for your questions.
Senator Marshall (02:18:22): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Rowe, there was probably 10 buildings within sniper range of President Trump on that afternoon. Why was the building being used by the sniper not in the security zone?
Acting Director Rowe (02:18:37): That's a question that I've asked, Senator. There was a decision that we were going to construct the site and it was going to maintain within the Butler farm show site that that building, that AGR, was right on the curtilage of our outer perimeter. And it's something that I, again, having been there and walked it, I had a hard time understanding as to why.
Senator Marshall (02:19:00): So there's no protocol that says anything within 300, 500 yards, direct line of the President should be in or out of the security zone? There's not a protocol that describes that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:19:11): So Senator, what we try to do is we try to either control the high ground or mitigate line of sight concerns.
Senator Marshall (02:19:17): Okay. You've stated that on multiple occasions, President Trump's team was denied more of a detail, more assets. Who denies that? Who is the person that denies that, generally speaking?
Acting Director Rowe (02:19:31): So Senator, there's a process. Again, there's a conversation had with the detail-
Senator Marshall (02:19:37): There's got to be a buck stopping. There's going to be someone. Who is the person? Is it a level within the DC agencies? Is it someone in the Pittsburgh office? Who denies it?
Acting Director Rowe (02:19:45): It has nothing to do with the Pittsburgh office, sir. It is a conversation between not only the detail, the field office, but also-
Senator Marshall (02:19:52): I don't want to know the conversation. I want to know who makes the decision.
Acting Director Rowe (02:19:56): The decision, sir, it's our process between the Office of Protective Operations and the Office of Investigations.
Senator Marshall (02:20:03): Is there a title for this position?
Acting Director Rowe (02:20:06): It is called, we affectionately call it the war room and it's where all of our logistics files into.
Senator Marshall (02:20:14): So it's a room that makes the decision.
Acting Director Rowe (02:20:16): It is a staffing and assignments office, sir.
Senator Marshall (02:20:18): Okay. Is the Secret Service required to do a briefing with all entities of law enforcement involved in the event of the days leading up to the event and the day of the event?
Acting Director Rowe (02:20:27): We do a police meeting, sir, where we start the-
Senator Marshall (02:20:30): So it's required? Is it required? Is it part of your standard operating procedure?
Acting Director Rowe (02:20:35): The police meeting is what initiates the advance and that is what is required.
Senator Marshall (02:20:41): Was this meeting held on that day?
Acting Director Rowe (02:20:44): The police meeting took place in the days prior to that.
Senator Marshall (02:20:50): Do you have documents that that meeting actually happened?
Acting Director Rowe (02:20:55): If we do, sir, I will get them to you.
Senator Marshall (02:20:57): But you're saying that it did not happen on the day of the event?
Acting Director Rowe (02:21:00): Sir, I think what you're referring to is a briefing that the state and locals would've done with themselves. We did a briefing with our own folks. They briefed-
Senator Marshall (02:21:10): When? So did your people meet with local law enforcement the day of the assassination attempt?
Acting Director Rowe (02:21:18): Yes.
Senator Marshall (02:21:20): Okay, and you realize that the local law enforcement says, "No," that that meeting never happened and that's why we need to get these people in to talk to us and this is why the FBI needs to be speaking up sooner than later and say that meeting did or didn't happen. Surely there's some type of documentation of that meeting one way or the other. Is there documentation of that meeting?
Acting Director Rowe (02:21:41): So Senator, I can tell you that what you're referring to is the counter sniper team seconded to Butler ESU. Our personnel met with the team lead from Butler ESU and they discussed areas of concern, areas of responsibility, and that did in fact happen at the site on that day.
Senator Marshall (02:22:03): Director, I think you would agree with me that there were multiple individual and institutional failures the day of this assassination attempt. You have a $3 billion budget, you're still 2,000 employees short, and in 2022, the Secret Service had a 48% departure rate. That tells me you either have a cultural problem or just gross incompetence. Which one is it?
Acting Director Rowe (02:22:27): So Senator, I would challenge that 48% departure rate. Let me get you some statistics that we have. It is not 48%.
Senator Marshall (02:22:36): But go back to the multiple failures that we saw on an individual basis as long as systemic. I think it proves that there's either incompetence or some type of a cultural problem within the SS.
Acting Director Rowe (02:22:48): So Senator, I know you're not calling our workforce incompetent and I know we do not have a cultural problem. If anything, we are dedicated to making sure that we don't have mission failure. And let me get you the hiring numbers that we have because I think you will actually see that, no, we've actually done very well fairly recently with trying to make sure that we have the numbers that we need. Of course we need more people. Everybody does, but let me get you those numbers and I think, let your own eyes see it.
Senator Marshall (02:23:15): Would you also disagree with me when it's reported that almost 50% of the rank and file officers don't trust leadership within the Secret Service?
Acting Director Rowe (02:23:26): Senator, I think it's the right of every worker to talk bad about their boss.
Senator Marshall (02:23:32): Thank you. I yield back.
Speaker 3 (02:23:34): Senator Hirono, you're recognized for your questions.
Senator Hirano (02:23:37): Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Clearly, there is a lot that the Secret Service has to answer for in this stunning security failure, but I do want to follow up on Mr. Abbate's testimony that an online profile of the shooter may have been found and you said it contains anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant postings. Can you elaborate? Have you found anything further in the shooter's profile?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:24:10): Senator, this was just discovered as I mentioned, and it's being closely analyzed right now. We need to verify that it is in fact, that it belonged to the now-deceased shooter and that he made these comments. So that's why I felt it important in the interest of transparency to share that here, but add the caveat that we still have a lot of work to do, which we're working on quickly to determine that. It's of importance, I think, because if it is in fact the shooter that posted these comments, it's the first real indication where he's expressing what are described as extremist views and talking about political violence.
Senator Hirano (02:24:49): I take it that once you determine that it was in fact the shooter who posted these kinds of comments, that you will let the public know as well as this committee?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:24:58): Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Hirano (02:24:59): I think in fact it is very important that many of the perpetrators of mass shootings, et cetera, have these kinds of postings online that are very anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-everything. And it is really important, as we determine the kind of profile for many of these shooters, that we understand how critical it is that we are careful, how critically important it is that people are careful about what they're posting online, the misinformation, disinformation, everything else along those lines. This is for Mr. Abbate once again. What kind of firearm, what kind of weapon did Crooks use in the assassination attempt?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:25:49): This was an AR-15 style rifle manufactured by a company named Panther Arms.
Senator Hirano (02:25:57): And once again, many of the persons involved in these kinds of mass shootings use this particular kind of weapon. We know from similar hearings that the Judiciary Committee, that we are a nation awash in guns. In your view, shouldn't we be doing more to prevent the easy accessibility of these kinds of firearms in our country?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:26:21): Senator, we're focused on collecting the facts here and I'm not going to comment on something like that.
Senator Hirano (02:26:27): Well, I know that there is a hesitancy to ask about firearms and all of that, and I should think that as a law enforcement person that you probably have some opinions along those lines, but you don't want to articulate. To many people in our country, there's a causal factor here, the easy accessibility of guns. And I want to ask that question because I think it's important that the American people understand that we are a nation that is awash in guns and we have more mass shootings than any other country, and yet, we have been unable to pass the kind of laws that prevent these kinds of firearms to be easily available, that we have not done enough to promote gun safety in our country. (02:27:17) And Mr. Chairman, I wanted to articulate that as the elephant in the room that nobody wants to address, including apparently, our law enforcement officers, I am disappointed in that, but obviously, we have work to do to create a much safer environment and to prevent persons who have these kinds of ideological perspectives and I would say, who have these kinds of profiles, to have such easy accessibility to the kind of firearms that can cause mass deaths and destruction. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 3 (02:27:58): Senator Lankford, you're recognized for your questions.
Senator Lankford (02:28:00): Chairman, thank you. Thank you to both of you for the testimony today. Director Rowe, future Vice President JD Vance was in my state this past week in Oklahoma City. I talked with some of the Secret Service folks that are there. They're doing a terrific job. I got a chance to be able to thank them personally for the tasks they're doing and I know the Oklahoma folks in Secret Service and they're very dedicated, incredibly sharp people on that team. So I know this is a challenge to all Secret Service. This is something every Secret Service agent wakes up every single day and wants to avoid. So please continue to be able to pass on our gratitude for the work they do every single day and for what's happening out there.
Acting Director Rowe (02:28:36): I will, sir.
Senator Lankford (02:28:37): Appreciate that. Mr. Abbate, I want to ask you about some of the interviews that have happened. Y'all have done more than 400 interviews at this point. For the counter sniper team that was local law enforcement that was on the second floor overlooking that rooftop, have they been interviewed at this point?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:28:53): Yes, Senator. I believe that each of them had been interviewed.
Senator Lankford (02:28:56): Do you know offhand if they were at their post at that time, able to look across that? They were at that post at some times? Do we know they were at that post at 6:08 to 6:11?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:29:07): My understanding, and to be fair, I have not read the reports directly, but I've been briefed on some of it, they were, at times, during the timeframe we're talking about here, on post within the AGR building, and I do believe, but I would want to confirm this, at some point, one or more did venture out in an effort to locate and isolate the-
Senator Lankford (02:29:28): I understand from the timeline, that they were also looking for this individual that was suspicious that they had left that post to be able to try to look for them on the ground at different points to try to be able to see if they could get a different perspective. What we're trying to figure out is during that time period that he actually climbed on the roof, assembled a firearm or took a firearm with him or picked one up or whatever it might've been there, that they were able to actually see him if they were able to look left as been acknowledged in the photos that are up there.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:29:53): Senator, I don't know the exact timing and the movements of each officer that was out there, but what I would derive from it is they were all focused on locating the shooter, the suspicious person at the time. And then as we've all seen, the one officer attempted to get on the roof directly. There were efforts going on in those final minutes on the video to try to get to this person.
Senator Lankford (02:30:15): We've got one officer being boosted up by another officer to look up on the roof because people on the ground had said, "There's someone up there and they have a gun that's crawling on that roof," and so they climbed up to be able to see it. He turned around with a rifle, he came down and then at that point, he gets on the local radio that he has and says there's someone on the roof with a gun. Is that correct?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:30:33): Yes, Senator. I believe that that's accurate.
Senator Lankford (02:30:35): So what's the rest of the radio communication? We've heard that first call in, we know it's about 30 seconds from the time he called in until the actual first shot rang out. What else was discussed on the radio during that 30 second time period?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:30:47): Senator, we have the radio communications. The local radio communications were recorded and captured and we do have that as part of the investigation. The key points to me, that local officer communicating that he sees the individual, he's armed, that's at about 5:11 and some seconds, I think it's three seconds, and then he identifies it as a long gun and about 6:1, in 11 seconds. And the shots, which all happened quickly together, I believe happened within probably 30 seconds of that last-
Senator Lankford (02:31:21): We're talking about over the radio because there's a command center there, where all radios, including the local, as they're all being listened to try to be able to review, there's a statement that has the word gun in it that's coming out across that radio. We only know that first communication. We don't know what came back and forth on that. We'd like to get transcripts of that conversation that was done, local law enforcement. But coming into that command center, there's also the word gun coming through one of the radio frequencies. I would think that would be communicated pretty quickly to everybody across the spectrum. 30 seconds is not long, but that's an NFL play plus a huddle plus the next play. That's quite a bit of time still to be able to respond. When Secret Service moved to be able to protect the President once the first shots were fired, within two seconds they're gathered around him. So trying to be able to figure out where the word gun got lost in radio communication here and what else was said.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:32:16): Certainly, we will share the communications with you and the committees, Senator. I will note just from my notes, there was effort within those minutes and seconds once the gun was announced, there's other communications where the local police are talking about deploying a QRF and responding and that they've got the building surrounded. So it's not an avoid, I don't want to give you the misimpression that-
Senator Lankford (02:32:40): Right, I understand, but typically, I would assume for Secret Service, if they hear over the radio over something gun, they're moving to be able to protect the detailee, the person they're protecting at that point, the protectee, that they're moving pretty quickly at that point if that's what's actually coming out. And so that's what I'm trying to be able to figure out how that didn't get communicated out to the people that were directly in front of the former president at that point. And the last question I'd have, I only have a second left, is just was there any overhead drone? We've talked about counter drone, but any visibility that Secret Service had to be able to see the field and all the operation and their own ability?
Acting Director Rowe (02:33:14): No, sir. And as was asked by another senator earlier, it appears that there was an offer by a state or local agency to fly a drone on our behalf. And I'm getting to the bottom as to why we turn that down.
Senator Lankford (02:33:27): Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:33:29): Senator Kennedy, your recognized for your questions.
Senator Kennedy (02:33:32): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Abbate, am I saying your name right?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:33:38): Yes, Senator. Thank you.
Senator Kennedy (02:33:40): You are the deputy director of the FBI, is that correct?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:33:44): Yes, Senator.
Senator Kennedy (02:33:46): Is there any doubt in your mind or in the collective mind of the FBI that President Trump was shot in the ear by a bullet fired by the assassin Crooks?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:07): Senator, there is absolutely no doubt in the FBI's mind-
Senator Kennedy (02:34:11): It wasn't-
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:12): ...whether former President Trump was hit with a bullet and wounded in the ear. No doubt. There never has been.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:20): Okay.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:21): I've been part of this investigation since the very beginning and that has never been raised.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:25): You're sure?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:27): Yes.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:28): It wasn't a space laser?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:31): No.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:32): It wasn't a murder hornet?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:35): Absolutely not.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:37): It wasn't Sasquatch?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:39): No, Senator.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:40): It was a bullet?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:42): It was a bullet, Senator.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:43): Fired by Crooks?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:45): Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:45): That hit President Trump in the ear and almost killed him?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:34:49): 100%, Senator.
Senator Kennedy (02:34:50): Okay, glad we cleared that up. I don't want to get off the subject here. Did the FBI just settle two lawsuits, one wholly, one in part, in which the FBI agreed to give Peter Strzok $1.2 million and Ms. Lisa Page $800,000?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:35:13): It's my understanding, Senator, that the Department of Justice was involved in that, not the FBI.
Senator Kennedy (02:35:18): The FBI had nothing to do with it?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:35:20): There may have been consultation with our general counsel's office, but-
Senator Kennedy (02:35:24): Does the FBI have to sign off on it?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:35:27): I don't know the answer to that. I don't believe so. But I would want to confirm that.
Senator Kennedy (02:35:31): I would like you to... This would be the same Lisa Page who said to Mr. Strzok, quote, "Trump's not ever going to become president, right? Right?" To which Mr. Strzok said, quote, "No. No, he won't. We will stop it." That's the Peter Strzok and Lisa Page I'm talking about. I need to know if the FBI signed off on this lawsuit or on this settlement.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:36:00): We will get that answer for you, Senator.
Senator Kennedy (02:36:02): And then I need to know who signed off on it. Did you sign off on it?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:36:07): I absolutely did not and would never sign off on something like that.
Senator Kennedy (02:36:11): Did Chris Wray sign off on it, the settlement?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:36:15): I don't believe he did.
Senator Kennedy (02:36:17): Okay. You don't know what-
Deputy Director Abbate (02:36:19): Nor do I think he would have.
Senator Kennedy (02:36:19): You need to let me know who signed off on this, if anyone at the FBI. So it was Merrick Garland who agreed to do this, is that right?
Deputy Director Abbate (02:36:27): Senator, I do not know who signed off on that.
Senator Kennedy (02:36:29): Well, hell, somebody had to agree to it. I've settled a lawsuit before. The client's got to agree to it. You're the client.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:36:36): Understood. I'm going to direct you to the Department of Justice to answer those questions. That's-
Senator Kennedy (02:36:41): All right, get me that information if you would. Mr. Rowe, help me understand this. The assassin Crooks fired his first shot, as I understand it, at 6:12 PM. He was about 140-150 yards away. It's been reported that the snipers, the government snipers, saw him on the roof 20 minutes before. Not two minutes, 20 minutes before. Is that correct?
Acting Director Rowe (02:37:25): Senator, that's the first time I'm hearing this. That is not correct based on the information I have right now, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:37:33): Well, when did the FBI snipers see him on the roof?
Acting Director Rowe (02:37:41): It was just Secret Service snipers, sir. I mean-
Senator Kennedy (02:37:43): I'm sorry. You're right.
Acting Director Rowe (02:37:46): That's an insult, sir. No, I'm just kidding.
Senator Kennedy (02:37:46): I understand. I apologize. When did the Secret Service snipers, one of whom ultimately shot the assassin Crooks, first see him on that roof?
Acting Director Rowe (02:37:56): So sir, immediately upon the shots being fired, our snipers-
Senator Kennedy (02:38:04): I know that, but when did they first see him? You got a guy lying on a roof. You got snipers in an elevated position. They can look down on the roof. You got the guy lying there with a gun pointed at the former president of the United States. And they shot him. Good for them. He's now dead as Woodrow Wilson. And that's a good thing. I'm sorry. God, forgive me, but it's a good thing. But when did the snipers first see him?
Acting Director Rowe (02:38:36): As soon as he presented himself as a target and a threat to the President, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:38:41): And when was that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:38:43): He fires initially a volley, I believe it was three shots.
Senator Kennedy (02:38:49): No, he fired at 6:12 PM.
Acting Director Rowe (02:38:51): Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:38:52): Okay, that's the first shot.
Acting Director Rowe (02:38:53): So within 15.5 seconds of the first shot, he's neutralized.
Senator Kennedy (02:38:57): Here's what people are asking.
Acting Director Rowe (02:38:58): Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:39:02): Crooks was up there, the snipers, at some point, saw him-
Acting Director Rowe (02:39:07): Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:39:07): ...our snipers, because they killed him.
Acting Director Rowe (02:39:09): Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:39:10): When did they first see him? It has been reported repeatedly that the snipers first saw him 20 minutes before. That's more than a quarter in an NFL football game.
Acting Director Rowe (02:39:25): Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy (02:39:27): You don't know the answer to that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:39:28): I do know the answer, sir. I'm telling you that-
Senator Kennedy (02:39:30): What is the answer?
Acting Director Rowe (02:39:31): No, they did not see him. They only saw him-
Senator Kennedy (02:39:34): They never saw him?
Acting Director Rowe (02:39:35): No, sir. They did not.
Senator Kennedy (02:39:36): How could they not see the guy? How could they not see him? They're in an elevated position, they're checking rooftops, they're looking around, there's two government snipers, how could they not see him there? There he was, big as Dallas, lying there with a gun pointed at the President. How could they not see him?
Acting Director Rowe (02:39:56): Because I believe he was obscured by that roof, sir. He did not pop up.
Senator Kennedy (02:40:00): The roof is flat with ridges.
Acting Director Rowe (02:40:04): He's below the line where they would've seen him, sir. He did have concealment. I'm not going to say it's cover. He did have concealment and then ultimately, gets into firing position and fires. And within 15.5 seconds of his first shot, he's neutralized.
Senator Kennedy (02:40:21): I've gone way over. Yep, you gentlemen need to answer these questions. Mr. Deputy Director, get me that information about those lawsuits.
Speaker 3 (02:40:31): Senator Rosen, you're recognized for your questions.
Senator Rosen (02:40:34): Thank you, Chair Peters and ranking member Paul for holding this important hearing on the attempted assassination of former President Trump. I am grateful for everyone's service and dedication. However, it's critical that this committee get to the bottom of what happened that day so that we can prevent any future catastrophic security failures and ensure that nothing like this happens again. And so Director Rowe, given that the event took place in a rural area, we've talked a lot about connectivity issues. Was law enforcement at a disadvantage due to a lack of, or limited connectivity? And why has the Secret Service not adopted a dedicated satellite-enabled Wi-Fi connection, which would facilitate integrated communication, enable device connectivity to include drones and allowing for the sharing of real-time intelligence.
Acting Director Rowe (02:41:25): So Senator, thank you for that question. So based on what I've seen, that radio connectivity to cellular was an issue that day. With respect to the satellite broadband, that is something that I've tasked our CIO and then we're getting some support from the Department of Homeland security on. So we will start to leverage whatever asset we have to ensure that connectivity.
Senator Rosen (02:41:46): Well, I can tell you that we have those SEAR ratings in Homeland security, those special event ratings that we have for things like the Super Bowl, we have it a lot in Las Vegas, and they do bring these mobile units to be sure that we have all the dedicated Wi-Fi, cell service and integration that is absolutely necessary for securing a huge event. And so I look forward to hearing about that. Thank you. I want to talk a little bit about intelligence for lone wolf actors because although we have not been made aware of any specific intelligence, the Secret Service or others had in the shooter before the event, we do know that we have intel on Iranian threats against the former president. And so again, acting Director Rowe, could you talk to us about how you utilize intelligence collection as a way of mitigating threats from state actors like Iran compared to lone wolf actors. It seems to be like the attempted assassin that we have here in Crooks. And what are the specific challenges with the intelligence collection as a mitigation tool against lone wolf factors versus state actors?
Acting Director Rowe (02:42:57): So Senator, first, let me preface by saying the Secret Service is not a member of the intelligence community. However, we are their biggest consumers of information and we receive that information regularly, especially as it pertains to our protective mission and the people that we protect. We have embeds with the FBI through their national Joint Terrorism Task Forces. Our agents are basically embeds and are able to not only receive information, but also follow up on investigations that may have a nexus or a direction of interest towards one of our protectees. We have an excellent working relationship with the FBI. We have an excellent working relationship with the intelligence community. We are not collectors, we are consumers of finished analytic products that the intelligence community or the FBI produces. We ingest them and then we use that to adjust our protective posture. And we do this daily, weekly, all of the time. And it's not only for protectees, but also the events and sites that we protect on a permanent or temporary basis. (02:44:12) With respect to largely, a lot of the people that come to our attention, and in the case of the assailant, to me, as I overlay him over top of, say, John Hinckley who tried to shoot President Reagan, I see an individual based on information that I have now, some of the great work that the FBI has done, we have an individual who's a loner. We have an individual who was focused on Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Hinckley traveled the '80 campaign and we know that he followed President Carter. On March of '81 he happened to show up in Washington DC and he saw an opportunity
Acting Director Rowe (02:45:00): To try to attack President Reagan. So when it comes to the Secret Service, and 1981 was a watershed moment for us. We have people that are, for whatever reason, fixated on carrying out an attack against the president of the United States or one of our protectees. And in this instance, you have the assailant who was a loner, obviously he was researching, he had researched the Democratic National Convention, he had researched and Googled or used a search engine about the president, the former president, and so I think he had moved towards an idea that he was going to try to do something. And so when I look at this, we don't have a challenge with the FBI or the intelligence community, I think what we always try to wrestle with is trying to line up and see people as they're starting to head down a pathway towards violence, and it's something that we have spent a lot of time and resources in with our National Threat Assessment Center to try to gain a better understanding so that we can help our agents in the field as they're doing these protective intelligence cases and these investigations to be able to make a determination, is somebody generally a threat or do they need mental health or do they need some other type of service?
Sen. Rosen (02:46:17): Thank you. I appreciate that. My time is over. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Peters (02:46:20): Thank you. Senator Cotton, you're recognized for your questions.
Cotton (02:46:24): At the outset, I want to express, as many members have, as President Trump did, the admiration and respect for the bravery and skill of the officers who were on site that day, Secret Service Officers as well as all the local law enforcement. As it happened, my nine-year-old son was watching with me that afternoon and it was hard to get him to turn away from it and he asked who all those men and women were who jumped on Mr. Trump, and I said, in layman's terms, "Those are his bodyguards." And he said, "What are they doing?" I said, "They're protecting him from a bullet." And he said, "Actually?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "For real?" And I said, "Yes." And it was hard for him to process that. (02:46:59) But as a reminder, I told him that there are men and women in the Secret Service and law enforcement and the military who are willing to die for our country, and it's an important lesson I think that everyone should take away from this, that you had very brave men and women on the ground there who were doing their job to protect this country, to protect a former president and a nominee for president as they do every day for so many other protectees. Obviously there were failures in the planning and preparation for this event. Mr. Rowe, we've heard that the shooter had a golf rangefinder. Was that not on the list of prohibited items at a event like this?
Acting Director Rowe (02:47:37): Currently it is not on the list of prohibited items, but we're going to make that change, Senator.
Cotton (02:47:45): John Kennedy can't get into an LSU football game with a flask.
Senator Peters (02:47:49): Yeah, I can.
Cotton (02:47:49): Well, he probably can, but he's not supposed to. It just seems like common sense that you don't need a laser rangefinder at an event like this. And it feels like a lot of that was just the lack of common sense being exercised. Are officers not empowered on the front line to use common sense to say like, if a guy has a laser rangefinder, he should be detained or at least stopped and that's why he's carrying it around? If you have a building like this that's not secure from 150 meters away, someone, even the front line, lowest level, most junior officer should be able to send up the red flag immediately and say we need to halt everything right now and figure out what the hell is going on. I mean, do officers not feel empowered to use that kind of common sense?
Acting Director Rowe (02:48:32): I would hope they would, Senator. I can tell you from our uniformed division officers that run our magnetometer screening, they do a tremendous job. And even though something may or may not be on the prohibitive items list, they are well-trained and they do exercise that good common sense.
Cotton (02:48:48): And you want this message? Okay. I want one of your officers all around the country to hear that their acting director wants them to exercise common sense. It doesn't have to be policy or protocol or procedure, they should exercise common sense. Thank you for that. So it was reported right before Ms. Cheatle's hearing last week that in fact, president Trump's detail had requested more resources and those had been denied. She said that she did not deny those resources. You've testified this morning that you did not either. So who did? I mean, the Secret Service is not the post office. It's not this vast bureaucracy. I'm not surprised to hear that you knew the counter sniper. It's a small agency and you have a lot of career officers, like surely you've gotten to the bottom by now of on whose desk this request landed and who denied it.
Acting Director Rowe (02:49:35): So Senator, sometimes when they make a request, they may not have the asset available. For example, there may be, instead of, the detail may say, "Hey, we want 15 magnetometers." We'll look at it based on what the event size. We'll say, "Listen, we're going to send 10 based on our protocols of screening so many. We have a flow rate of how many people we can put through." When it comes to a Counter Sniper or something like that because I know that's been the subject of some media reporting where they have requested counter snipers. We do have a finite number of counter snipers. And so what we try to do is if we cannot fill that asset, and that's where we'll say, "Hey, we can't fill this assignment. However, through the field office, they will use local law enforcement resources. And so in those situations, for example, in the one that has been the subject of a lot of reporting with Pick in South Carolina, they in fact did use local assets to be able to do that and there were three counter sniper teams. (02:50:48) One of them was formerly with the Secret Service Uniform Division. And so they actually used the same practices that we use. So it's not that there was a drop in the capability, they actually use the best practices that we would use. So the asset may be denied by Secret Service between the war room and that conversation with the detail in the field, but doesn't equate to a vulnerability or a gap.
Cotton (02:51:14): Okay. One final question about the Iran threat. As you know, Iran made credible threats against several former Trump administration officials, many of whom still have government provided security details to this day, Ms. Cheatle removed secret service protection from Robert O'Brien last year. Were you involved in that decision?
Acting Director Rowe (02:51:37): So Senator, he was a memorandum protectee, meaning that the president authorized protection for him. We do not weigh in on who gets protection.
Cotton (02:51:47): So you're still protecting some others. I won't reveal their names. You are still protecting others, and other personal security offices and the federal government are protecting others, other officials, don't reveal their names. Who made the decision that Robert O'Brien no longer needed a security detail despite Iran's ongoing credible threats?
Acting Director Rowe (02:52:09): I can tell you, sir, it wasn't the secret service. We don't factor into that decision at all.
Cotton (02:52:13): Can you take a look at why that happened now that you're in charge and consider the possibility that he might still need that protection given all of his counterparts in the Trump administration still have protection?
Acting Director Rowe (02:52:22): I will do so, Senator.
Cotton (02:52:24): Just... Go ahead.
Acting Director Rowe (02:52:26): No, you go ahead. Go ahead.
Cotton (02:52:27): I just want to say, again, I'm not going to reveal the protective details, but I'm pretty confident that the agency can get this done and I think it needs to get done if you look at the kind of ongoing threats that he and all these others face.
Acting Director Rowe (02:52:40): Yeah, I will, sir.
Cotton (02:52:41): Despite all the resource constraints we've talked about today, he's not the president of the United States, he doesn't have an 18 car motorcade, nor do any of the others. I think he needs that protective detail, and now that you're in charge, I'm asking you to take a new look at that and also talk to your supervisors inside the department about whether you can spare just that small limited amount of resources, okay?
Senator Peters (02:53:01): Senator Welch, you are recognize for your question.
Acting Director Rowe (02:53:03): I will, sir.
Sen. Welch (02:53:05): Thank you very much. First of all, thank you both for the tremendous work you do and for all the folks behind you and under you. So thank you for that. I kind of want to follow up a little bit on Senator Cotton. There's three issues that have been raised. One is the selection of who gets protection, and you've addressed that just now. The other is whether it's a budget issue, which I don't necessarily think it is. But then there's the operational question, was this an operational failure? And it appears to me that's where the focus should be. And one of the issues on the operations is the capacity of people who are part of the team, both Secret Service and also local law enforcement, their capacity to act on what they see. And this is what Senator Cotton I think was talking about with common sense. You mentioned that the sniper was authorized immediately to act, he wasn't checking in with anyone, right? And he took out the shooter as quickly as he could. (02:54:16) But according to the timeline, you had local law enforcement capture two photographs of the shooter at 5:10. At 5:32, local law enforcement officers, spot a suspicious person who turned out to be the shooter with a phone and a range finder. At 5:46, the alert was so significant that snipers text photo of the shooter from where he was initially spotted to the USS lead sniper. How is it that where you had these experienced law enforcement people who understood the gravity of the responsibility of protecting the presidential candidate, the former president, none of these actionable observations resulted in action. I'll direct that first to you, Deputy Director Abbate.
Deputy Director Abbate (02:55:14): Thank you, Senator. From the FBI standpoint, we're simply collecting the facts. We've interviewed most of the officers, now we will end up interviewing all of them along...
Sen. Welch (02:55:25): Okay, we'll go to assistant director or acting director Rowe.
Acting Director Rowe (02:55:31): So on that Senator, I think there was a sense of, this guy is standing out and that's why he came to the attention of local law enforcement.
Sen. Welch (02:55:39): No, I get that. That's my point. He did stand out.
Acting Director Rowe (02:55:42): Correct.
Sen. Welch (02:55:43): But nothing happened. There were alerts.
Acting Director Rowe (02:55:47): There were alerts.
Sen. Welch (02:55:47): But there was like, you've got somebody suspicious, why didn't somebody go interact with the suspicious person right away?
Acting Director Rowe (02:55:55): And they were attempting to locate him. I can't answer that question as to why. If they took a picture of him and they thought he was unusual, suspicious, not acting normal, why there wasn't... And I think, again, there was probably an assumption on the part of that officer that took that picture that, oh, some uniform or somebody will go eventually and walk up to this...
Sen. Welch (02:56:20): Well see, that's what seems like an operational failure, somebody else will do it. So is the responsibility of an officer to alert some other officer that they think somebody might be suspicious or the first officer who sees a suspicious person can take the next step to actually engage that person or talk to someone very, very close to it and, say, engage that person. And this guy was wandering around for quite a while.
Acting Director Rowe (02:56:50): He was. I can't put myself in the mind of that officer.
Sen. Welch (02:56:55): I'm not asking you to do that. I'm asking, this is operationally, how does the process work? Okay. So that is the job of the leaders as opposed to the officers. Are they empowered to act immediately upon the observation of someone who looks very suspicious, particularly when they've got the range finder, they're in a place where it really wasn't about seeing the rally as we see, it was a place where you get a good view of former President Trump. That is a leadership issue, right?
Acting Director Rowe (02:57:30): So Senator, that officer didn't work for me. That was a state and local officer that made that observation, took that picture. So I can tell you from the Secret Service perspective, and we do this routinely, is that when people come to our attention, we locate them, we go up, we do a field interviewer or we try to do a consensual encounter.
Sen. Welch (02:57:50): That's the operational thing I'm talking about. If you do it within Secret Service, you all are in charge and you are relying on local law enforcement assets. Those folks, and they did their job here up to a point where they identified this person, passed information along, but nobody acted. The empowerment to that local officer I would think has to be transmitted through the Secret Service maybe in the earlier briefings, but where you say, folks, you see somebody suspicious, you engaged that suspicious person.
Acting Director Rowe (02:58:27): I don't disagree, Senator, and it goes back to my comments at the beginning of the hearing that we need to be very direct to our local law enforcement counterparts so that they understand exactly what their expectations.
Sen. Welch (02:58:37): I yield back. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Peters (02:58:40): Thank you. Senator Tillish, you're recognized for your questions.
Sen. Tillish (02:58:42): Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Abbate, Mr. Rowe, thank you for being here. Mr. Rowe, do you have a picture... I think I was watching your testimony earlier. Do you have a photograph of the vantage point from the Secret service snipers?
Acting Director Rowe (02:58:56): I do. I believe that's C.
Sen. Tillish (02:58:58): And were both there were two, is that correct?
Acting Director Rowe (02:59:02): Yes, sir. Stage left and stage right.
Sen. Tillish (02:59:03): Okay. And I don't know if you have a vantage point of both of them or not. I know you had one for the one who ultimately shot the...
Acting Director Rowe (02:59:12): That's the vantage point of the sniper who neutralized the assailant.
Sen. Tillish (02:59:15): Okay. Well, is it a similar vantage point for the other? Would they have also been impaired in terms of actually seeing him until he popped his head up?
Acting Director Rowe (02:59:22): So the sniper on the stage right side, Senator, they had an obstructed view because of that tree.
Sen. Tillish (02:59:30): They had an obstructed view. Okay. So the one thing in this discussion that I don't believe that a sniper saw someone on the roof 20 minutes before just doesn't make sense to me. It sounds like the one who took the shot probably saw him for the first time about a split second before he pulled the trigger. Is that...
Acting Director Rowe (02:59:52): That's my assessment, Senator.
Sen. Tillish (02:59:56): Well, first off, I'd like to clarify the request that have been made of a lot of people so that we get the information in a good form. I think it would be helpful, at least all the way back to I think November 5th of 2022, I believe, when President Trump announced that he was running for re-election. I think it'd be helpful if we could just get a matrix of any request for additional security, the resolution of that request, was it honored? Was it denied? Was it downsized? If you could give us that, I think that that's going to be the best way versus giving us mounds and mounds of paper. If you can do that. I know you're looking at the same thing. I've heard from you that any subsequent request for field requests are being honored. I believe that that's true. Is that your testimony?
Acting Director Rowe (03:00:38): Yes, sir.
Sen. Tillish (03:00:39): Okay, thank you. I'm more worried about the 24 to 30 seconds between the time I believe local law enforcement officer was hoisted on the shoulders of another police officer, saw a person armed less than 200 yards away from the president who I believe jumped down. What happened in those 24 or 30 seconds. I mean, obviously there's no such thing as a panic button. The first thing you'd think is you had panic, you cover the president, get them off stage. None of that happened. What happened? Is it just that I hear a text message? What actually happened in the 30 seconds where a law enforcement officer knew that a gun was pointed in the direction of the president from a fairly short range? What actually did those folks who did have knowledge of exactly what was happening and could probably infer what was about to happen, what did they do? And Mr. Abbate or Mr. Rowe, either one, based on your interviews.
Deputy Director Abbate (03:01:39): Thank you, Senator. From the interviews, the officers in the immediate vicinity were operating with urgency at that point to get to this person, but he was on the roof. The officer who had looked over the edge, based on what I've been told, the shooter turned toward him with the rifle. That's what the officer observed. So he was under threat himself in that second so he had to retreat and step down and get back to the ground in order to protect himself and keep him safe from potential rifle fire. But once he got to the ground along with the other officers, there were Butler County local officers, Pennsylvania State Police, they were moving around trying to find somebody to get to this guy.
Sen. Tillish (03:02:18): I think clearly we've got an operational problem here because we had more than 20 seconds to have somehow cut through all the crap and the communications, whatever impediments there were have to be removed. I mean, it's pretty clear to me. First off, that law enforcement officer... I love law enforcement. I wear the black and blue pin every day. They do great work, Secret Service did phenomenal work on the stage, but they failed because their job is to the public and they needed to put themselves in harm's way to stop him. Now, I'll let the interviews go through, but there was a massive failure. There were at least two law enforcement officers that knew a guy was about to pull the trigger at the president, and I'm just not really happy with the fact that we couldn't have communicated, covered President Trump and try to secure the situation. I'm going to let the investigation go through, go forward. (03:03:20) I think it's very important to point out that we can't let a scenario go in the future where 20 seconds can lapse when a law enforcement officer within two football fields of a former president of the United States has material knowledge that somebody's about to get shot at on stage, and we don't have instantaneous response. In the old days, maybe you'd just shoot a gun in the air. I know for a lot of reasons why they didn't do that, but there had to be some way to actually defuse that situation. It didn't happen on July the 13th. I just want to end by saying Mr. Rowe, I think you've been forthcoming in your answers. I know you're frustrated. I've seen you twice now. You're clearly embarrassed by what happened. You don't think there's any reasonable explanation into my colleagues who are worried about communications. They should spend times in their local government and state legislatures to understand just how bad communication is between law enforcement and first responders. (03:04:14) We need to invest in this infrastructure. That was also a part of the failure. But if you can please get to me and get to this committee, a chronology, a request, accept it, deny it and the reasons for, I think that's going to be very helpful.
Acting Director Rowe (03:04:28): I will, Senator. Thank you.
Sen. Tillish (03:04:29): Thank you. Senator Blackburn, you're recognized for your questions.
Sen. Blackburn (03:04:32): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to each of you for your patience and for being here today. Director Rowe, I want to come to you first because a counter sniper has decided to speak out about the culture at your agency and I think it is very telling. He sent an email, and I'm going to quote from that, "If this agency needs to change and if not now, when? The next assassination in 30 days?" But here's what I want to talk with you about because in this email, he says, and I'm quoting again, "The motto of the USSS is CYA, and every supervisor is doing it now." That's the end of his quote. So you're the guy in charge and you're one of those supervisors. You've been a career guy there at the Secret Service. The public has lost trust and the ability to execute the mission, to protect, and I want to know how you feel about the fact that employees in your agency are worried about covering their behind and not worried about protecting a former president.
Acting Director Rowe (03:05:55): Thank you, Senator. So I am hurt by that email, but not in the way you think I'm saying it. I'm hurt because my people are hurting right now. We need them.
Sen. Blackburn (03:06:09): Then why did somebody delete the email?
Acting Director Rowe (03:06:13): I'll get back to you on that, Senator.
Sen. Blackburn (03:06:15): The agency deleted the email.
Acting Director Rowe (03:06:18): May I address your question?
Sen. Blackburn (03:06:19): Yes, please.
Acting Director Rowe (03:06:20): And I'll get back to you as to whether the email was deleted or not. My agency is hurting. Emotions are raw. I actually want to hear more from that duty officer, that technician. In his email, he referenced that he had spent time serving our nation as the United States Marine, that he is a twenty-year professional of the Secret Service. I am committed to being a change agent, meaning I am committed to reviewing some of these things. I looked at the points in his email, very quickly, I saw, as I was on my way over here this morning. I want to have further conversations, not only with him, but also the counter-sniper.
Sen. Blackburn (03:07:07): If I may step back in, sir?
Acting Director Rowe (03:07:09): Yes ma'am.
Sen. Blackburn (03:07:10): All right. So you want to talk with him? What about other whistleblowers? What about this culture? Are you going to allow these whistleblowers to speak out? Because it is troublesome if somebody went into the server and deleted that email. And I would hope you will get to the bottom of that and be able to provide some answers because this is, as you have heard from both sides, this is a situation that cannot be allowed to happen again.
Acting Director Rowe (03:07:43): Yes, ma'am.
Sen. Blackburn (03:07:43): Ever. Mr. Abbate. Am I saying your name properly? We've heard it pronounced three different ways today in the hearing.
Deputy Director Abbate (03:07:52): Abbate, Senator.
Sen. Blackburn (03:07:54): Abbate. Okay.
Deputy Director Abbate (03:07:55): Thank you.
Sen. Blackburn (03:07:57): You had mentioned a social media account that espoused anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic views, but you did not say what platform that was on and what the username was. And this is Crooks that we're discussing.
Deputy Director Abbate (03:08:15): Yes, senator. That's Crooks. I didn't want to comment on it because we haven't fully confirmed yet, and I thought that as soon as we confirm and certify, I'll provide that to you.
Sen. Blackburn (03:08:25): And also the age at which he had those feelings. And then we understand that the GAB account is pro-immigration, pro-lockdown, leftist views. Is that accurate?
Deputy Director Abbate (03:08:41): I haven't seen it directly, but I believe from what I've been told that is accurate. With the GAB account, though that's been publicly revealed through the CIO and other things, we're still working to certify and verify that that's his account also, but it does have differing points of view, it would appear.
Sen. Blackburn (03:08:59): Okay. And what age and how fresh is that GAB account?
Deputy Director Abbate (03:09:07): The GAB account, based on my recollection, the comments in there or the messaging is from about 2021, I believe.
Sen. Blackburn (03:09:14): Okay. And the other preceded that, maybe he was age 14?
Deputy Director Abbate (03:09:20): Yes, senator. The other account that we talked about was in the 2019, 2020 timeframe. So it would've been in the couple years right before the GAB.
Sen. Blackburn (03:09:29): Right before that.
Deputy Director Abbate (03:09:30): Yes.
Sen. Blackburn (03:09:30): Are there other accounts that you all are currently verifying and receiving information from?
Deputy Director Abbate (03:09:38): We are. As I mentioned, we've issued a bunch of legal process and we're still awaiting returns from a number of the companies to include other social media companies as well.
Sen. Blackburn (03:09:49): Okay. Well, my time has expired. Thank you for your patience today. Thank you for the information. We look forward to getting more information. And Director Rowe, we are going to hold you to being a change agent because things at the Secret Service absolutely have to change. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Peters (03:10:13): Thank you. And I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony here today. Certainly what happened on July 13th could and should have been prevented, from what I have heard today. I'm certainly grateful to our witnesses for their candid answers and for helping to provide additional clarity and new information about the circumstances surrounding this attack. Acting Director Rowe, some of what you have said today conflicts with information and accounts that we have received from local law enforcement that we've had the opportunity to talk with. They have been voluntarily and, I will say expeditiously cooperating with our bipartisan investigation, which we certainly appreciate. But we now need to speak with Secret Service agents directly who are directly involved, and I would say that you need to make them available as soon as possible. (03:11:14) Those interviews can't start weeks from now or months from now. Time is of the essence when memories are fresh and you can get the information that is most important to us. So my question for you as we wrap up this hearing, acting director Rowe, will you commit to having those agents available for this committee to interview as soon as possible in a matter of days, not weeks, matter of days?
Acting Director Rowe (03:11:40): Yes, sir.
Senator Peters (03:11:40): Great, thank you. Certainly the American people deserve to know what went wrong and they deserve accountability for those security failures. And as we continue our bipartisan investigation into security failures that day and any underlying systemic issues, we'll continue working to follow the facts, get clear answers, and make important recommendations to ensure that a security failure like this never happens again. (03:12:06) The hearing record will remain open for 15 days until five P.M. on August 14th, 2024 for the submission of statements and for the questions for the record. This hearing is now adjourned.