Mike Lee grills acting Secret Service chief over Trump assassination attempt

WASHINGTON — Utah Sen. Mike Lee scrutinized the acting head of the Secret Service Tuesday morning, questioning why Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was not quickly taken off stage when officials identified a "suspicious individual" with a rifle near a campaign rally before the former president was shot in the ear in an attempted assassination.

Lee questioned acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe during a Senate hearing in Washington to examine the security lapses that preceded the July 13 assassination attempt. The previous head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned just a week earlier under bipartisan pressure to step down following the shooting, which also killed one rallygoer and critically injured two others.

A joint panel of senators from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and judiciary committees grilled Rowe and deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate for over three hours Tuesday morning, seeking answers to a series of yet-unanswered questions about the shooting that nearly killed the former president.

In prepared testimony before the hearing, Rowe said he was "ashamed" after visiting the site and "cannot defend" that the rooftop 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired from "was not better secured."

"Why was President Trump allowed to take the stage at 6:02 p.m., exactly 17 minutes after multiple suspicious person reports were provided, complete with photos and information suggesting that the assailant had a rangefinder — something that ordinary people don't use in this kind of circumstance?" Lee asked Rowe.

Earlier in the hearing, Rowe had described a delay in communications between local law enforcement officials and the Secret Service, and he told Lee Secret Service agents were not immediately told that there was an individual with a gun.

"Neither the Secret Service countersniper teams nor members of the former president's security detail had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the building with a firearm," he said. "It is my understanding those personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots."

"Would President Biden ever be allowed on stage under similar circumstances with an unresolved set of multiple suspicious person reports provided, including indicating that there was a rangefinder involved?" Lee followed up.

Rowe said he would need more information and later reiterated that "no information regarding a weapon on the roof was ever passed to our personnel."

"How is that even possible?" Lee said.

"You're saying that the local police didn't consider that relevant enough to pass along to the Secret Service?" he asked.

Rowe said he believes local law enforcement agencies "were in the midst of dealing with a very critical situation, and they articulated that over the radio — as I understand it — however, it was never relayed over to us."

The acting director called the assassination attempt a "failure on multiple levels." As for not having sufficient cover on the roof Crooks fired from, Rowe said, "We're not going to make that mistake again."

In a statement posted on X after the hearing, Lee said there was "an unacceptable lack of information from the Secret Service."

"Seventeen days," he later posted from his personal X account. "That's how long Secret Service has had to answer the most crucial, obvious, and basic questions about what happened — including why they let Trump take the stage and didn't remove him before shots were fired. And yet, they say they're 'looking into it.'"

Related:

Secret Service acting director 'ashamed' about Trump shooting

The U.S. Secret Service's new acting director said on Tuesday that he was "ashamed" of a security lapse that led to the July 13 attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but blamed the shortfall on local law enforcement.

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