House task force holds final hearing on Trump assassination attempts

Washington — Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe testified Thursday before the bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempts against President-elect Donald Trump, saying he takes accountability for the agency’s “abject failure” before the shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania in July that sent shockwaves through the country. 

The panel, which the House voted to establish earlier this year, is tasked with looking into the security failures during the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the foiled attempt in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15. The lawmakers will also make recommendations to prevent future attacks.

The Secret Service came under intense scrutiny in the wake of the initial attack, and its director at the time, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned in July after a bruising day of testimony before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. 

The hearing

Rowe’s testimony on Thursday marked his first public appearance before the task force, which heard testimony from local law enforcement and a former Secret Service agent at a hearing earlier this year. Rowe appeared before other congressional committees after he took control of the agency.

“July 13 was a failure of the Secret Service to adequately secure the Butler Farm Show site and protect President-elect Trump,” Rowe said in an opening statement to lawmakers. “That abject failure underscored critical gaps in Secret Service operations and I recognize that we did not meet the expectations of the American public, Congress and our protectees, and they rightly have that idea based on how we performed.”

Rowe said he had implemented several changes within the Secret Service, including launching an aviation unit to ensure drones are overhead at events with protectees and shifting its Office of Investigations to the Office of Field Operations. The agency should better leverage technology used by other federal departments, he said, citing the Secret Service’s use of a robotic dog that walks the sea wall at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s South Florida estate.

The hearing broke out into a shouting match between GOP Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas and Rowe when the congressman displayed a photo of Trump, President Biden and other U.S. leaders at a memorial event for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks this fall. 

Fallon took issue with Rowe’s position near Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump and Mr. Biden. Fallon accused the Secret Service chief of taking the place of the agent who was in charge of security for the event.

“Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes!” Rowe shouted in response, telling Fallon that he responded to Ground Zero on 9/11 and was at the event in New York City in September to pay respect to Secret Service agents who died. Rowe said his closeness to Trump, Mr. Biden, Harris and vice president-elect JD Vance did not impact protective operations.

“Do you know why you were there? Because you wanted to be visible because you’re auditioning for this job,” Fallon yelled.

Task force chairman Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican whose district includes Butler, said that every employee investigators asked to speak to was made available by the Secret Service, and said the agency chose “a path of cooperation in pursuit of the truth.”

In the course of its probe, the panel conducted 46 interviews, participated in more than a dozen briefings with agencies, reviewed 20,000 pages of documents, and visited the incident sites in Butler and West Palm Beach, Kelly said.

Among the deficiencies the panel identified during its investigation were communications and intelligence failures at the Butler rally. Kelly said investigators did not find evidence suggesting that Secret Service agents in proximity to Trump knew there was a suspicious or armed person on a rooftop close to where he was speaking.

The task force’s findings are in line with those from other investigations into the July 13 assassination attempt, including from an independent review panel that examined the shooting.

The task force’s investigation

Made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats, the panel is expected to submit a report of its findings in the coming weeks. Following Thursday’s hearing, the panel will hold a business meeting to consider the final report, the task force said. 

The task force released a 53-page interim report in October focused on the July 13 incident, deeming it “preventable,” while outlining communication and planning shortcomings. The investigation “clearly shows a lack of planning and coordination between the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners,” the task force said at the time, noting that the findings were preliminary. 

Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 when a gunman opened fire, with a bullet grazing the former president’s ear. Secret Service snipers shot and killed the gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. 

The panel outlined in the interim report that “fragmented lines of communication” allowed the gunman to “evade law enforcement,” climb onto the roof of a nearby building and fire eight shots. The report claims that “federal, state, and local law enforcement officers could have engaged Thomas Matthew Crooks at several pivotal moments.”

The task force also alleged in the report that responsibilities were not “effectively” confirmed by the Secret Service with local partners ahead of the shooting. Witnesses who participated in a walkthrough of the area days before the assassination attempt called it disorganized. 

When the interim report was released, the panel said it had received relevant information from other House committees, conducted 23 transcribed interviews with witnesses from state and local agencies, and obtained evidence in response to three subpoenas to federal, state and local agencies. Last month, the panel also issued subpoenas to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for testimony from two ATF employees. 

The panel has also sought information from federal agencies regarding the Sept. 15 incident. On that day, Trump was golfing at his course in West Palm Beach when the Secret Service arrested a man with an AK-47-style weapon who was within a few hundred yards of the president-elect. The man, Ryan Wesley Routh, has been charged with attempted assassination of a political figure in addition to firearms charges.