Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is demanding Acting Secret Service Director Ronald L. Rowe Jr.’s response after agency whistleblowers alleged he “personally directed” personnel cuts that ultimately left former President Donald Trump vulnerable to a would-be assassin’s bullet at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
According to Hawley, anonymous whistleblowers claimed the cuts affected the Secret Service Counter Surveillance Division (CSD), which then failed to conduct a proper threat assessment of the site.
“The whistleblower claims that if personnel from 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 in his letter directed at Rowe.
?? NEW – Whistleblower tells me Secret Service Acting Director Rowe personally directed cuts to the USSS agents who do threat assessments for events. Whistleblower says those agents were NOT present in Butler – and some of them had warned of security problems for months pic.twitter.com/v9igQ5L7FZ
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 1, 2024
“The whistleblower further alleges that you personally directed significant cuts to CSD, up to and including reducing the division’s manpower by twenty percent.”
“You did not mention this in your Senate testimony when asked directly to explain manpower reductions,” Sen. Hawley added.
Additionally, the whistleblowers claimed the Secret Service would retaliate against agents “who expressed concern about the security at President Trump’s events.”
“The whistleblower claims that following an event with the former President at a golf tournament in August of last year, Secret Service personnel present expressed serious concern that the Secret Service’s use of local law enforcement was not adequate for security needs: local law enforcement were not properly trained for the event or otherwise prepared to execute the tasks given them,” Hawley wrote.
“Further, Secret Service personnel expressed alarm that individuals were admitted to the event without vetting. The whistleblower alleges that those who raised such concerns were retaliated against.”
Hawley is calling on Rowe Jr. to respond by August 8, providing CSD personnel records and info on agents who’ve faced disciplinary action for raising concerns, as well as a “breakdown of Secret Service personnel at the July 13 rally by division or unit.”
Sen. Hawley’s letter comes as he and Rowe Jr., who took over the position following disgraced Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle’s resignation, got into a heated exchange Tuesday during a hearing focused on the security failures that led to the attempted assassination.
Hawley grilled Rowe Jr. over why nobody at the agency has been held “accountable” for the numerous security failures that almost resulted in the death of Trump, to which Rowe responded that he didn’t want to put his “thumb on the scale” during an ongoing investigation.
So Trump gets shot, a good American is murdered, other individuals are critically injured – and the Secret Service hasn’t fired or taken off duty a SINGLE person involved on the day pic.twitter.com/2tv4PR0U7h
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 30, 2024
The Secret Service director says it’s “unfair persecution” to relieve of duty leadership responsible for the Trump rally security debacle? Are you serious? It’s called accountability. Of which so far there has been ZERO pic.twitter.com/ZYMN3i3CZI
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 30, 2024
