The security failings surrounding the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump will come under greater scrutiny when senators hold a joint hearing on Tuesday in an attempt to find answers that have so far eluded frustrated lawmakers.
The Secret Service’s new acting director, Ronald Roe, and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate are scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees. The Secret Service was responsible for providing security for President Trump at the July 13 rally where the shooting occurred, and the FBI is leading the investigation into what happened.
Senators from both parties said they would seek new information about what Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of both committees, called “numerous flaws and failures.”
“There are important and significant questions that the leadership of these institutions have not been able to answer until now. [or] “I can’t even begin to react,” Blumenthal said.
Those questions, Blumenthal said, include the shooter’s motive, how he gained access to the building and roof where the shooting took place, why authorities were warned he had suspicious equipment but failed to stop him and why there was no Secret Service presence on the roof.
“This is a systemic failure,” he said.
The hearing came on the heels of disastrous testimony last week by former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, in which she frustrated lawmakers, including Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), for failing to answer basic questions about that astonishing operational failure.
She resigned the next day.
FBI Director Christopher Wray was more forthcoming when he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last week, but lawmakers are hoping to hear more from Rowe, who briefed senators last week ahead of Tuesday’s joint hearing.
“Facts, truth and accountability for those responsible,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), a member of both committees, told The Hill what he wants to hear. “This is an incredible security failure… We need honest answers tomorrow.”
Hawley added that the message members sent to Rowe during Thursday’s briefing was blunt.
“I would encourage him to be forthright on Tuesday,” Hawley said, adding that if Rowe deflected the question “it would be very unpleasant for him.”
Some Republicans downplayed expectations that there would be any revelations on Tuesday.
“We may see something come out of this,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, “but I’m not overly optimistic that there’s a lot of new information.”
But Blumenthal, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations, expressed confidence in Rowe, especially in the wake of Cheatle’s resignation.
“I have eight trillion times more confidence in Rowe than I did in his predecessor,” Blumenthal said, adding that he has “great hope and optimism” that Rowe wants to “get the truth out there.”
“I think he understands that his institution is in crisis and that exposing and correcting whatever failures there are is the only way, the only path, to ultimately vindicate his institution,” he continued.
The hearing is seen as just the beginning of an investigation by Blumenthal and a subcommittee led by the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Lawmakers also want to know what reforms the Secret Service and other agencies plan in the wake of the shooting. Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he wants to know what the shooting means for next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Durbin pointed to the logistics of holding many of the daytime events at McCormick Place, the convention center on the city’s lakefront, before party officials, lawmakers and delegates move to the United Center on the west side of the Loop.
“What steps are they going to take,” Durbin said, “are they planning on taking steps to protect the movement of all people between these two venues?”
