The Secret Service’s myriad failures that led to an assassination attempt against former President Trump and the murder of Corey Comperatore, come as little surprise to Sen. Ron Johnson, a longtime critic of the agency. In 2014, after two years of investigating the Secret Service’s numerous disciplinary problems and security lapses, he concluded that the agency tasked with protecting U.S. presidents, vice presidents, their families, and other officials had a “systemic” or “cultural problem.”
In the ensuing decade, those problems were never addressed, Johnson says, which led to the agency’s worst day since the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Reagan took a bullet in his lungs, and nearly died. White House Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the head and grievously wounded. Secret Service Director H. Stuart Knight, who also led the agency during two attempts on President Gerald Ford’s life, was eased out eight months later, although he was allowed to take a lesser post in the Justice Department. Earlier this week, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle stepped down amid a bipartisan congressional firestorm over her lack of transparency and refusal to promise accountability while testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas quickly tapped Cheatle’s deputy, Ronald Rowe, as acting director. Rowe has faced immediate scrutiny for his close working relationship with Cheatle and recent quotes to the Wall Street Journal defending her leadership as the criticism piled up in the wake of the security lapses at the July 13 Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
But Sen. Johnson came forward Thursday to offer initial praise for Rowe, who immediately visited the Butler site Wednesday upon his appointment, a trip Cheatle didn’t make in the immediate wake of the attempt on Trump’s life. Eight days after the security breakdown in Butler, Johnson, the ranking Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Investigations, issued the most detailed report about the numerous problems the Secret Service and local law enforcement officers from the area experienced that day. These included siloed communications, a failure to post agents or officers to the building where shooter Thomas Crooks fired at Trump and the crowd, and the Secret Service’s decision not to whisk Trump off the stage to safety once a threat was detected.
Johnson spoke to RealClearPolitics Thursday after Rowe provided a briefing to senators on the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees. The Wisconsin........