Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said on Tuesday that he was “ashamed” that his agency failed to adequately protect former President Donald Trump from a would-be assassin.
“As a career law enforcement officer, and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured,” Rowe told two Senate committees after surveying the Pennsylvania site where Trump was nearly killed.
![Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. testifies before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees on Capitol Hill on July 30, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F07%2F30%2Fid5696541-GettyImages-2164403760-OP-1200x800.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
Suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks allegedly fired off eight shots from the roof of the AGR International Building near the Butler Farm Show grounds. The former president and at least two rally-goers were wounded, while a third lost his life.
Seventeen days later, lawmakers still had many questions as to how a 20-year-old gunman managed to evade the detection of the nation’s top security agents.
The word on everyone’s lips? Accountability.
“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,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) agreed, demanding to know why no Secret Service employees had been relieved of duty.
Rowe said he would “not rush to judgment” but wait for the results of the agency’s internal investigation before taking disciplinary action.
He advised that he has enhanced security standards in the wake of the shooting by expanding the use of drones, beefing up protection for Secret Service protectees, and conducting threat assessments for all those in the agency’s charge.
He also announced plans for the creation of a common operating platform through which local law enforcement will have a direct line to agents in the future.
But on the shooting itself, Rowe had few answers.
He couldn’t say why no officers were stationed on the roof and was unsure if any had been ordered there. He also had “no explanation” for how a cellular connectivity issue barred law enforcement from using drones but not the shooter.
Rowe did refute reports that his agents skipped a security meeting with Butler Emergency Services Unit (ESU) personnel on the day of the shooting.
“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,” he said.
He also said reports that Secret Service personnel were redirected to secure a nearby event for First Lady Jill Biden were “not true.”
In the way of new information, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said investigators believe they may have identified social media accounts linked to Crooks.
One of the accounts posted more than 700 comments between 2019 and 2020, including some that “appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence, and are described as extreme in nature,” Abbate said.
He declined to specify the social media platform on which the comments were posted. But he did confirm that investigators found a Gab account that may be linked to the gunman.
Abbate also suggested that Crooks may have broken down his rifle and hidden it in his backpack to evade detection by law enforcement. But investigators “don’t have conclusive evidence of that.”
—Samantha Flom, Zachary Stieber, and Jackson Richman
![Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention in Houston, Texas, on July 25, 2024. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F07%2F26%2Fid5693932-Harris-GettyImages-2162789021-1200x800.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
WHAT HARRIS IS CAMPAIGNING ON
With fewer than 100 days to go before the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris has worked to solidify a platform that sheds some of her past progressive stances and aligns her closer to President Joe Biden.
Harris, like Biden, also supports federal legislation to bring back the abortion access seen before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
She is believed to be the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion provider and co-sponsored legislation as a senator to ban states from creating abortion restrictions.
She follows the president on border security, urging Congress to pass reforms and the necessary funding to slow the influx of migrants.
During her “root causes” strategy in 2021, she announced $310 million to address the factors of migration from Central America while bringing together companies to provide $750 million in resources for the region to slow migration.
She told migrants in Guatemala in 2021, “Do not come” to the United States after previously vowing to pass immigration reform during her 2019 presidential campaign.
Harris also backs Israel like Biden but recently said how Israel defends itself “matters” and called for an end to the war while pushing Israel to “do more to protect innocent civilians.”
Harris vowed to continue military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russian attacks.
She backed Biden’s recent Supreme Court reforms calling for term limits and a binding code of ethics after expressing an openness to expanding the number of justices in 2019.
Harris’s tenure as a prosecutor and state attorney general is a focus for her campaign as she supports Biden’s call for policing reforms, including a ban on chokeholds and carotid holds, de-escalation training for cops, a national database for police misconduct, and decriminalizing marijuana.
The vice president said in June 2020 that the “defund the police” movement “rightly” called out the funds spent on police departments instead of community services, but walked back that position in October 2020 after joining the Biden campaign.
Harris also follows Biden on guns, calling for an assault weapon and high-capacity magazine ban, as well as universal background checks and red flag laws.
She supports the Second Amendment but once said in 2019 that she agreed with a mandatory buyback program for military-style assault weapons, a position she no longer holds.
While Harris would follow the president on not raising taxes on those making less than $400,000 a year, she supports a 35 percent corporate tax rate compared to Biden’s 28 percent.
Harris, like Biden, believes health care should be a right in America, but in 2019 advocated for extending Medicare to all citizens and paying for it with increased taxes.
She will likely continue Biden’s $35 cap on the monthly price of insulin but has not yet released a definitive health plan.
Harris once supported a ban on fracking but recently told Politico that she no longer supports this position, aligning her with Biden.
—Jacob Burg
BOOKMARKS
Israel’s military forces launched an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon on Tuesday, killing one woman and seriously wounding several other residents. The strike was reportedly aimed at a Hezbollah commander, and in retaliation for a recent strike in Israel that killed 12 children on a soccer field.
France has experienced a rash of arson and sabotage events against its high-speed rail system, taking place just before the Paris Olympics. Authorities arrested a far-left activist on Sunday, but said it was unrelated to the previous vandalism events.
The Senate has passed two bills aimed at improving safety of children on the web. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act increases the age of “protected minors” from 13 to 16, and the Kids Online Safety Act aims to give kids ways to avoid infinite doom-scrolling.
Interpol announced that its drug-busting “Operation Lionfish” has resulted in more than 200 arrests and 678 tons of narcotics and precursors. The initiative spanned 31 countries and uncovered a “narco-sub” used for underwater cocaine transport.
Canada is undergoing an outbreak of listeria, which has lead to 13 hospitalizations and two deaths. The illnesses are being traced back to a recall of tainted oat-milk and almond milk.
—Stacy Robinson