ADDS TESTIMONY FROM HEARING
By Servet Gunerigok
WASHINGTON (AA) - The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a "failure on multiple levels," Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said Tuesday.
Rowe said he identified gaps in security on the day of the assassination attempt and has "implemented corrective actions."
"One of my first actions as acting director was traveling to the site to better understand how our protection failed," Rowe told senators, alongside FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, during a joint hearing by the Senate Judiciary and Governmental Affairs committees on the July 13 assassination attempt.
He said he could not defend why the roof where the gunman fired at the former president was not better secured.
"To prevent similar lapses from occurring in the future, I directed our personnel to ensure every event site security plan is thoroughly vetted by multiple experienced supervisors before it is implemented," said Rowe.
Rowe also said the agency will use drones to prevent future security lapses.
In addition, the acting director said neither Secret Service sniper teams nor members of Trump's security detail had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof with a firearm.
"It is my understanding those personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots," said Rowe.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, a lone 20-year-old gunman, opened fire on Trump during a campaign rally in the state of Pennsylvania striking him in his right ear.
The gunman killed one spectator and seriously injured two others.
Crooks was killed at the scene.
- Social media posts
Abbate said authorities found a social media account with posts that might be related to the shooter.
"Something just very recently uncovered that I want to share is a social media account, which is believed to be associated with this with the shooter. In about the 2019, 2020 timeframe, there were 700 comments posted" and they "appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence, and are described as extreme in nature," he said.
Rowe, meanwhile, said the agency had no justification for not recognizing the risk posed by the building from which the shooter fired.
"I could not, and I will not, and I cannot understand why there was not better coverage, or at least somebody at that roof line when that's where they were posted," he Rowe.
Asked by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar to explain what went wrong, Rowe responded: "I thought long and hard about this. I think this was a failure of imagination -- a failure to imagine that we actually do live in a very dangerous world where people do actually harm to our protectees."
"I think it was a failure to challenge our own assumptions," said Rowe.
"We assume that someone’s going to cover that, we assume there’s going to be uniform presence. We didn’t challenge that internally during that advance," he added.