Us Senator John Cornyn (TX) | Ballotpedia
Us Senator John Cornyn (TX) | Ballotpedia
July 30, 2024
WASHINGTON – Today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) questioned Acting Director of the Secret Service Ronald Rowe on the agency’s failure to investigate reports of a suspicious person at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, July 13. The incident resulted in an attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump. Excerpts from the session are provided below.
On Failures Related to Shooter’s Drone:
CORNYN: “Director Rowe, can you explain why the shooter’s drone worked?”
ROWE: “Because there was no counter-UAS present, sir.”
CORNYN: “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?”
ROWE: “I have no explanation for it, sir.”
On Failure to Identify Shooter:
CORNYN: “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?”
ROWE: “At that time, Senator, suspicion had not risen to the level of threat or imminent harm.”
On the Secret Service’s Overall Failure to Lead:
CORNYN: “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 two percent standard. In other words, isn’t that something that Secret Service should have covered as opposed to delegating it to local law enforcement?”
ROWE: “Senator, again, this is where I went back to earlier when I said it was in a failure to challenge our assumptions… 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. 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.”
CORNYN: “Director Rowe, I would just submit to you that those assumptions can be lethal.”
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