WASHINGTON — The acting director of the Secret Service “personally directed significant cuts” to threat-assessment teams ahead of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, a GOP senator claimed Friday, citing a whistleblower.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who clashed with acting Director Ronald Rowe at an oversight hearing Tuesday about the near-assassination debacle, published the whistleblower allegations in a public letter to the agency chief.
“A whistleblower has alleged to my office that the Secret Service Counter Surveillance Division (CSD), the division that performs threat assessment of event sites before the event occurs, did not perform its typical evaluation of the Butler site and was not present on the day,” Hawley wrote.
“This is significant because CSD’s duties include evaluating potential security threats outside the security perimeter and mitigating those threats during the event,” the pol said — three days after the hearing partly focused on the agency’s lack of firings over the glaring security failures at the deadly July 13 Butler, Pa., rally.
“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.
Rowe “acknowledged in [his] Senate testimony that the American Glass Research complex should have been included in the security perimeter for the Butler event,” the senator said, referring to a building onto which 20-year-old local loner Thomas Crooks was able to get on the roof and fire from.
The whistleblower “alleges that because CSD was not present in Butler, this manifest shortcoming was never properly flagged or mitigated,” Hawley said.
“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,” the GOPer said.
“The whistleblower also alleges retaliation against those within the Secret Service 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,” said Hawley, who requested records that could support the whistleblower allegations.
The Secret Service responded, “We respect the Senator and the role of oversight and will respond to the request through official channels.”
Rowe has led the agency since former Director Kim Cheatleresigned over the event disaster in which one crowd-goer was shot dead, two more were wounded and former President Trump was grazed on his right ear.