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Failures of Secret Service mount as senators demand accountability

Published

9 months ago

3 minute read

From The Center Square

By Greg Bishop

The failures of the Secret Service around the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump are mounting but members of Congress say there’s not been enough accountability.

Trump suffered a wound to the ear, a spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded when a sniper opened fire in Butler, Pennsylvania, at a campaign rally on July 13. Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned last week after a U.S. House hearing failed to get answers.

On Tuesday in a U.S. Senate hearing, Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe told U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, those on the ground making decisions that day have not been fired.

“Is it not prima facie somebody has failed? A former president was shot,” Hawley said.

“Sir, this could have been our Texas Schoolbook Depository,” Rowe said, referencing the sniper’s outpost in the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. “I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days, just like you have.”

“Then fire somebody, to hold them accountable,” Hawley said.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, and U.S. Sens. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, during Tuesday’s joint hearing on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
judiciary.senate.gov

Hawley was asking why the people who made the decision to not have someone on the roof where the sniper was ultimately killed, who managed radio communications or who failed to keep the president from taking the stage that day have not been fired.

Tuesday’s joint hearing was with the U.S. Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees. Senators reviewed the lapses in communications, placement of the parameter in Butler and where the buck stops for the failures.

Discussed was how the shooter was known minutes before the shooting to be suspicious with a rangefinder before being seen with a gun. The shooter even sent up a drone hours before the event. Rowe said they didn’t have their anti-drone systems in place until later in the day.

“It appears that there was an offer by a state or local agency to fly a drone on our behalf and I’m getting to the bottom of why we turned that down,” Rowe said.

The motive of the shooter, who was shot and killed, is still being investigated.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, confirmed from the Secret Service and the FBI that they are updating their security posture after the lessons of July 13 ahead of next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

“Tens of thousands of people will be there including some of the highest ranking politicians in the United States,” Durbin said.

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WATCH: U.S. ending bombing campaign on Yemeni militant group

conflict

WATCH: U.S. ending bombing campaign on Yemeni militant group

Published on May 7, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By 

“They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s the purpose of what we were doing”

During a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and reporters Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. is ending its bombing campaign against the U.S.-designated Yemeni foreign terrorist organization, the Houthis.

“We had some very good news last night. The Houthis have announced… that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight. And we will honor that and we still the bombings,” Trump said.

 

The Houthis began launching coordinated attacks on U.S. ships in the Red Sea in 2023. The Houthis have repeatedly conducted missile and drone strikes on American merchant and war ships since then, aligning themselves with Iranian terrorist groups and citing America’s support for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a reason for the attacks.

Through an executive order signed on his second day in office, Trump re-designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization and began an aggressive campaign against them. Former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally included Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal messaging thread containing details of U.S. strikes against the Houthis in March. The administration recently moved Waltz to its United Nations ambassador role and put Secretary of State Marco Rubio in charge of the National Security Council. Rubio will hold both positions.

Trump’s administration has repeatedly touted its victories against the Houthis as a sign of its strength, but Trump exhibited a slightly gentler attitude toward the group Tuesday.

“They have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s the purpose of what we were doing,” Trump said.

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Crime

Pam Bondi Reveals What The Holdup Is With Epstein File Release

Published on May 7, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters Wednesday that the FBI is still reviewing “tens of thousands” of child porn videos that were in the possession of Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein committed suicide while awaiting trial after he was arrested in 2019 on sex charges. Bondi was asked about the delay releasing the documents pertaining to Epstein by a reporter after announcing plans for a press conference Wednesday.

“The FBI, they’re reviewing… there are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn and there are hundreds of victims and no one victim will ever get released, it’s just the volume and that’s what they’re going through right now,” Bondi said. “The FBI is diligently going through that… I’ll call him later.”

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Epstein, who pled guilty to sex charges in 2008, had extensive ties to celebrities, politicians and executives, even after he was a convicted sex offender. Among those who were known to have been close were L Brands founder Lex Wexner, director Woody Allen and Prince Andrew.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also met with Epstein a number of times, as did employees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates met with Epstein as late as 2019 despite concerns his then-wife, Melinda, expressed according to a May 2021 report by The Wall Street Journal.

The Daily Caller asked President Donald Trump about the delay in releasing the files during an April 22 White House event. “I don’t know, I’ll speak to the attorney general about that. I really don’t know,” Trump told Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese. “I know that we’ve done the RFK, the Kennedy, Martin Luther King is out there very shortly, so we’ll find out. But … we’ve really, really announced, we’re doing them in full transparency.”

Bondi released the first batch of files regarding Epstein on February 27.

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