A hearing examining the Secret Service’s response to the assassination attempts against Donald Trump went off the rails on Thursday, when a screaming match broke out between the agency’s acting director, Ronald Rowe, and a Republican representative.
The hearing, hosted by the House taskforce established shortly after the first assassination attempt against Trump in July, was meant to explore the steps that the Secret Service has taken to improve security measures of protectees, but Pat Fallon, a Republican of Texas, took the questioning of Rowe in a different direction.
Fallon displayed an enlarged photo from a commemoration of the September 11 attacks in New York, which both Joe Biden and Trump attended earlier this year. Fallon accused Rowe, who was standing directly behind Biden and Kamala Harris in the photo, of taking the place of the special agent in charge that day and endangering the president’s security for the sake of a photo op.
Rowe replied that the special agent in charge had been just out of the picture’s view, and he attacked Fallon for politicizing the September 11 attacks.
“I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center,” Rowe said.
“I’m not asking you that,” Fallon interrupted, raising his voice. “Were you the special agent in charge?”
Rowe yelled back: “I was there to show respect for a Secret Service member that died on 9/11.”
Fallon suggested that Rowe, who is not expected to stay on as director once Trump takes office in January, had placed himself in better view to “audition” for the role in case Harris won the presidency.
“Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes,” Rowe told Fallon.
“I’m not,” Fallon replied. He accused Rowe: “You endangered President Biden’s life, Vice-President Harris’s life, because you put those agents out of position.”
Rowe denied that charge, telling Fallon: “You are out of line.”
The chair of the committee, Republican Mike Kelly, repeatedly banged his gavel until the shouting subsisted. The heated exchange came as the Secret Service faces intense scrutiny over its security practices, which attracted widespread condemnation following the assassination attempt against Trump.
The agency was pilloried for failing to ensure proper safety precautions at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman wounded the then presidential candidate and fatally shot an attendee named Corey Comperatore. Rowe’s predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned amid bipartisan criticism of her agency’s handling of security at the rally.
At the hearing on Thursday, Rowe described the events surrounding the assassination attempt as an “abject failure”.
Related: Secret Service chief berated in House hearing after Trump rally shooting
“July 13 was a failure of the Secret Service to adequately secure the Butler Farm Shows site and protect president-elect Trump,” Rowe said. “That abject failure underscored critical gaps in Secret Service operations, and I recognize that we did not meet the expectations of the American public.”
Rowe offered his condolences to Comperatore’s family and outlined a series of changes his agency had pursued since the July attack, including creating an aviation unit for drone surveillance of protection sites and streamlining communication with local authorities.
“Let me be clear: there will be accountability, and that accountability is occurring,” Rowe told the taskforce. “It is essential that we recognize the gravity of our failure. I personally carry the weight of knowing that we almost lost a protectee and our failure cost a father and husband his life.”
Since its formation in July, the taskforce has conducted 46 interviews and reviewed roughly 20,000 pages of documents, Kelly reported on Thursday. The taskforce is expected to release a final report on its findings in the coming days.
