Just days after Ronald Rowe, acting director of the Secret Service, denied playing a direct role in rejecting repeated requests for added security measures and assets to protect former President Donald Trump, whistleblowers came forward to refute those claims.
The whistleblowers also blamed Rowe for some security failures that led to the July 13 assassination attempt that nearly killed Trump and left rallygoer Corey Comperatore dead and two other attendees wounded.
Other Secret Service whistleblowers are coming forward, citing more systemic problems with the vaunted agency whose primary job is to protect presidents, vice presidents, former presidents, and their families.
Those deep-seated, long-term problems include nepotism and other non-merit-based favoritism, lowering standards and cutting corners in hiring (including accepting failed polygraph tests and past hard-drug use), and retaliation for voicing security and other concerns, as well as uneven disciplinary action.
Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter to Rowe on Thursday, citing “disturbing information” from at least one whistleblower who cited Secret Service planning failures for Trump’s July 13 campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, “and your own involvement.”
[Rowe, the Secret Service’s deputy director, became the agency’s acting director upon Director Kimberly Cheatle’s July 23 resignation following a bruising House hearing.]
Hawley wrote that he had received detailed information saying Rowe personally directed “significant cuts” to the Secret Service’s Countersurveillance Division, which performs threat assessment evaluations of event sites beforehand but didn’t perform its typical evaluation of the Butler site and wasn’t present that day.
“This is significant because CSD’s duties include evaluating potential security threats outside the security perimeter,” Hawley wrote, adding that a Countersurveillance Division threat assessment likely would have provided more measures to protect the rooftop of the American Glass Research building, where shooter Thomas Crooks, 20, perched and opened fire on Trump and the crowd.
“The whistleblower claims that if personnel from the CSD had been present at the rally, the gunman would have been handcuffed in the parking lot after being spotted with a rangefinder,” Hawley wrote. “You acknowledged in your Senate testimony that the American Glass Research complex should have been included in the security perimeter for the Butler event.”
The unnamed whistleblower further alleged that Rowe personally directed significant cuts to the Countersurveillance Division, including reducing its manpower by 20%, Hawley asserted.
“You did not mention this in your Senate testimony when asked directly to explain manpower reductions,” the Missouri Republican wrote.
Rowe specifically denied being involved in any decisions to reject requests for added security for Trump over two years. He disputed accusations that he was involved in decisions that limited the assignment of countersniper teams to any event not within driving distance of Washington, D.C. RealClearPolitics reported on those two accusations earlier this week, citing sources within the Secret Service community.
Whistleblowers also accused Secret Service leaders and........