Talk about timing.
Former President Donald Trump’s fateful July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania was the first-ever time the Secret Service used counter-snipers to protect him, the agency’s acting director Ronald Rowe revealed in a Friday press briefing.
“It was the first time Secret Service counter-snipers were deployed to support the former president’s detail,” Rowe told reporters during the nearly hour-long briefing on the investigation into the assassination attempt against Trump.
“We evaluated a threat stream … and we put our Secret Service counter-sniper personnel out there,” he said. “And looking back, it was very fortunate that we did.”
One of those counter-snipers likely saved Trump’s life by shooting and killing his would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, within seconds of him firing eight shots on Trump, 78, and other rallygoers at the campaign event in Butler, Pa.
Still, Rowe couldn’t explain why none were posted on the building from where Crooks opened fire.
Secret Service counter-snipers will now cover Trump, GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at outdoor events in the future.
In the past, the 45th president’s security detail had been covered by state and local counter-sniper teams, which for the Butler Farm Show site had been comprised of Beaver County Emergency Services Unit personnel.
Those local counter-snipers informed Secret Service about Crooks’ “suspicious” presence outside the perimeter of the rally grounds just 25 minutes before the shooting — but lost sight of him minutes before he climbed on top of the American Glass Research (AGR) International building and took aim at Trump on the main stage.
Rowe declined to blame local counter-snipers for any failures and took “full responsibility” for the communication breakdown and security lapses that nearly assassinated a former president, killed Corey Comperatore and wounded David Dutch and James Copenhaver.
One member of the former president’s security detail was on the phone with the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh field office as the shots rang out, the acting director told reporters Friday.
According to video footage taken by Copenhaver that was released this week, a figure was seen scampering across the roof of the AGR building at 6:08 p.m. that day, three minutes before Crooks started shooting.
“We should have had better protection for the protectee,” Rowe said at the Friday briefing. “We should have had better coverage on that roof line. We should have had at least some other set of eyes from the Secret Service point of view, covering that.”
“That building was very close to that outer perimeter,” he added of the roughly 130 yards between the protectee and the shooter. “And we should have had more of a presence.”
On Tuesday, Rowe testified in a joint Senate committee hearing that he was “ashamed” but could not “defend why that roof was not better secured.”
“I can assure you, we’re not going to make that mistake again,” he vowed to the committee members. “When our counter snipers are up, their counter snipers are up and they’re on the roof as well.”
The night before the hearing, an anonymous Secret Service counter-sniper warned that the agency “SHOULD expect another assassination attempt” in an email to the agency’s Uniformed Division, a source confirmed earlier to The Post, after having “fallen short for YEARS.”
Another whistleblower told Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that Rowe had “personally directed significant cuts” to threat-assessment teams like the Counter Surveillance Division (CSD) ahead of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
“What I can tell you is that the Counter Surveillance Division, they do a fantastic job,” Rowe responded Friday when asked by a reporter about the allegations.
“I know that there’s been allegations that I personally cut or that I denied that request,” he added. “I did not.”