Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe in a joint congressional hearing Tuesday admitted he was “ashamed” of security lapses that nearly led to the assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Rowe, who was elevated to the position last week following the resignation of his boss, said the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania was “a failure on multiple levels” during testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees.
He added that he has since visited the site of the Butler Farm Show grounds, “identified gaps in our security” and instituted “corrective actions” to prevent another shooter like Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, from opening fire at Trump or any Secret Service protected.
“I laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight,” Rowe told members of both committees in his opening remarks. “What I saw made me ashamed.”
“As a career law enforcement officer, and a twenty-five-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured,” he confessed.
Cheatle resigned last Tuesday following her disastrous testimony before the House Oversight Committee, in which she affirmed the security failures that led to the near-assassination — but still gave Secret Service agents an “A” grade for their response.
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