Tipsheet

Did the Acting Secret Service Director Get Caught Lying to Congress?

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  August 10, 2024 7:00 AM

The assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13 was a total failure, which the Secret Service admits. However, we’ve become bogged down in a who’s responsible for what game regarding the rooftop. The American Glass Research rooftop, less than 200 yards from the rally stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, was left unprotected. Acting Director Ronald Rowe visited the site and delivered testimony to a joint Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees hearing. Yet, the diagram he offered on the line of sight has drawn new scrutiny from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Grassley’s letter to Rowe, which included photos, demands the acting director to clarify his line of sight remarks since it looks like he might have lied:

“As part of my ongoing investigation into the attempted assassination, my investigative staff communicated with local law enforcement, to include counter snipers who were on site that day,” Grassley wrote. “Local law enforcement dispute the angle of the picture that you provided during your testimony, stating that the picture you provided neither accurately depicts their line of sight and coverage area from their position in the building nor their physical placement within the building. 

“As of August 9, 2024, Beaver County ESU have told my staff that Secret Service had not met with them to debrief the events of July 13,” Grassley continued. “This type of meeting should be standard, even more so before you are sworn in and provide testimony to Congress. Unfortunately, this further points to the communications issues that are in part to blame for that day, that seemingly continue to plague the Secret Service.”

 Here's what Susan Crabtree at RealClearPolitics reported on the diagram last week (via RealClearPolitics):

The diagram includes a narrow red triangle, clearly labeled “Beaver Sniper Line of Sight.” That line of sight is narrowly conscribed between the location of the snipers inside the AGR building to the stage and pointedly does not cover any area of the rooftop where Crooks ran across and then stopped to open fire. 

The narrow scope of the red triangle’s purported “line of sight” immediately stood out to some sources within the Secret Service community as purposefully narrowly constructed so as to try to prove that the local snipers never had any portion of the AGR building rooftop in their line of sight and therefore were not at fault for failing to monitor that rooftop. 

“Either the red vector was drawn deliberately to avoid responsibility, or it does not include any part of the roof by sheer accident,” one source told RealClearPolitics. “Either way, no one had eyes on the [AGR] roof.” 

[…] 

But the narrow nature of the red-triangle line of sight doesn’t sit well with many law enforcement sources who asserted that a local police sniper would have had a much wider line of sight perspective that included most of the AGR roof, if sitting close to the window’s edge and constantly looking out. 

In other words, he would have seen Crooks, if he had properly done his job, the sources argued.    

[…] 

Acting Secret Service Director Rowe, during his Senate testimony on Tuesday, put out a more simplified diagram showing a direct line of sight, or view of the entire AGR rooftop from where the local snipers were positioned. 

“Why was the assailant not seen when we were told that building was going to be covered?” Rowe angrily demanded during his Tuesday testimony. “That there had been a face-to-face that afternoon – that our team leads met.” 

“This was the view,” Rowe said, pointing to a photo of the AGR building’s rooftop. “These were discussions that were had between the [Secret Service’s] Pittsburgh Field Office, the local counterparts, and everyone supporting that visit that day.” 

Rowe went on to describe his visit to the Butler rally site and said he laid down on the AGR rooftop to recreate the line of sight that Crooks had. 

“That’s why when I laid in that position, I could not, and I will not, and I cannot understand why there was not better coverage or at least somebody looking at that roofline when that’s where they were posted.” 

Local law enforcement and the Secret Service have traded barbs over who was responsible for covering this area that had a clear line of sight to Donald Trump, who dodged a fatal headshot by millimeters. The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was able to piddle around the rally site nearly 100 minutes before his attack. He scaled the HVAC system to gain access to the rooftop, witnessed by dozens of attendees who tried to warn police. 

The Secret Service did not have access to the radio system used by local law enforcement, which had provided a description of Crooks before the assassination attempt. Leaked text messages also showed that Crooks was on security's radar, but we’re always a step behind due to these communications breakdowns and alleged poor planning by head Secret Service agents who were inexperienced and unqualified. No one has been fired over this fiasco, another contention point.