BUTLER, Pa. – A whistleblower told Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley that Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. personally directed cuts to the Counter Surveillance Division (CSD), which led to the threat assessment team failing to perform its typical duties prior to the Butler, Pennsylvania rally.
The senator’s report comes after lawmakers grilled agency leaders on the mounting security failures at the Pennsylvania rally where former President Trump narrowly escaped assassination.
The whistleblower alleged that the Secret Service CSD, the division that performs threat assessment of event sites before the event occurs, did not perform its evaluation prior to the fateful rally in Western Pennsylvania on July 13.
“This is significant because CSD’s duties include evaluating potential security threats outside the security perimeter and mitigating those threats during the event,” Hawley wrote in a letter to Rowe on Thursday.
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Senators grilled Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate about the events leading up to the July 13 attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The whistleblower further alleged that if the CSD performed their normal duties, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks “would have been handcuffed in the parking lot.”
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“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 to Rowe. “You acknowledged in your Senate testimony that the American Glass Research complex should have been included in the security perimeter for the Butler event.”
“The whistleblower alleges that because CSD was not present in Butler, this manifest shortcoming was never properly flagged or mitigated,” he said.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is covered by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Hawley’s office also revealed Rowe’s alleged personal involvement in cutting staffing to CSD.
“The whistleblower further alleges that you personally directed significant cuts to CSD, up to and including reducing the division’s manpower by twenty percent,” Hawley said. “You did not mention this in your Senate testimony when asked directly to explain manpower reductions.”
Sen. Josh Hawley released a report on Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr.’s alleged involvement in the staffing at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Rowe also contributed to a cultural problem at the organization, the whistleblower claimed, saying that retaliation was threatened to those who raised security concerns.
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“The whistleblower also alleges retaliation against those within the Secret Service who expressed concern about the security at President Trump’s events,” Hawley said. “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.”
“Further, Secret Service personnel expressed alarm that individuals were admitted to the event without vetting,” he said. “The whistleblower alleges that those who raised such concerns were retaliated against.”
An aerial image shows investigators surveying the area of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Fox Flight Team )
Approximately 90 minutes passed between the time law enforcement officials first identified a suspicious person near the rally grounds.
Officials temporarily lost sight of the suspicious person, but then around 5:52 p.m. a sniper spotted Crooks, which was about 20 minutes before gunfire rang out.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Secret Service for comment.
