Secret Service’s ‘CYA Culture’ Now in Senate Crosshairs

The Secret Service sniper, whom RealClearPolitics has agreed not to name out of concern for retribution against him, at first only provided a short note of outrage in response to the department-wide announcement of the creation of a new division for “advanced research and capabilities” when it comes to using technology to help protect presidents, former presidents, their families, and other protectees.

“A day late and a dollar short…in light of recent events,” he wrote in a first email sent to all his Uniform Division colleagues.

When asked by another employee if “he meant to send this to everyone,” the frustrated sniper affirmed that it was intentional before sounding off in a lengthy follow-up email in which he pressed for agency reforms and predicted another assassination attempt before November.

The agent railed against agency “supervisors” and “leaders,” whom he accused of refusing to listen to snipers and other “technicians” on reforms and technical innovations that could improve their ability to protect presidents, former presidents, their families, and other dignitaries under their watch.

“I know many look at [counter sniper] team as ‘guys who sit on the roof’ and don’t do much,” he wrote. “But our responsibility, our MISSION, is not about protecting an EMPTY White House located at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It’s about preventing and stopping another JFK-style assassination, in whatever city that may be. Sadly, we have fallen short for YEARS.”

“The agency needs to change, and if not now, when?” he pressed. “The next assassination in 30 days?”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, read from the email when questioning acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe at a Senate hearing Tuesday. She demanded to know why the “public has lost trust” in the agency’s “mission to protect” after the assassination attempt. Blackburn noted that the counter sniper who wrote the email ended it by arguing that the “motto” of the Secret Service is “CYA,” an acronym for “cover your a--.”

“And every supervisor is doing it right now,” the Secret Service sniper’s email concluded.

Rowe, during his testimony Tuesday, said he had implemented a number of changes to the agency after former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned amid bipartisan outrage after her appearance before the House Oversight Committee last week in which she alienated the committee and provided few answers to pressing questions about the agency’s failures on July 13.

Secret Service agents and officers also tell RCP that they have been given far more resources in the two and a half weeks since the Butler rally after years of being asked to do more with limited resources while senior agency officials received tens of thousands of dollars in annual “executive leadership” bonuses.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Rowe said he was “ashamed” of the Secret Service’s inability to protect the president and rallygoers at the Butler rally and could not defend “why the roof was not better secured.”

Rowe laid out some changes he is implementing, including “expeditiously” providing more Secret Service personnel and assets at campaign events, instituting multi-layered supervisory vetting and sign-offs of all security plans for events and rallies, and instituting “expanded” use of drones to help detect threats on roofs and other elevated areas. Rowe also said he has directed resources to facilitate communications between agents and officers on the ground and state and local partners to provide “enhanced radio interoperability” that the Butler rally lacked.

But Secret Service agents and officers told RCP they had been pressing for some of these technological advancements and security enhancements for years, but had been ignored by their supervisors. At the July 13 rally, Rowe conceded during the hearing that even though they had a drone in the air roughly two hours before the rally began, the agency’s counter-drone system that could have stopped the shooter before he opened fire was down for two hours because of an Internet broadband issue.

Rowe said he was still trying to grapple with the technological circumstances that could have allowed drones to spot the 20-year-old shooter crawling along the roof with an AR-15.

“What if we…geo-located him because that counter [drone] system had been up? It is something that I have struggled with to understand,” he told the senators. “I have no explanation for, it is something that I feel as though we could have perhaps found him. We could have maybe stopped him. Maybe on that particular day, he would have decided this isn’t the day to do it, because law enforcement just found me flying my drone.”

Despite Rowe’s concessions and a pledge to provide accountability and serve as a “change agent,” the acting director at times pushed back on demands for the firing of individuals responsible for the decision not to place a Secret Service counter sniper – or apparently instruct local law enforcement – to man the roof of the building where Crooks perched and opened fire.

Sen. Josh Hawley demanded that there be firings over the security failures at the rally, arguing that the “site agent” who came up with the security plan that day should be removed from duty.

“Why don’t you relieve everybody of duty who made bad judgments?” Hawley asked, raising his voice.

But Rowe pushed back aggressively. 

“I will not rush to judgment,” Rowe retorted. “I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people…unfairly persecuted.”

“Unfairly persecuted?” the Missouri Republican exclaimed. “We have people who are dead!”

“We have to have a proper investigation into this, senator,” said Rowe, who Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tapped to replace Cheatle after she resigned. Rowe had served as Cheatle’s hand-picked deputy director.

Rowe went on to say that the site agent and others responsible for security decisions in advance of the rally were still on the job because they were participating in the investigation and were continuing in their protective roles.

Hawley and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz cited whistleblowers who have said that the Secret Service denied repeated staffing requests for additional security and manpower to protect Trump over months and even years.

The Secret Service has repeatedly pushed back against any assertion that leaders or supervisors denied requests for extra security on the day of the Butler rally. Rowe, on Tuesday, told lawmakers that the number of people on the security team equaled that of the current president of the United States.

But Hawley accused Rowe of evasive answers, arguing that his whistleblower “is telling us more than you are.” When Rowe argued that his agency has been “transparent and forthcoming,” Hawley angrily disputed the statement.

“Your agency has not been transparent and forthcoming. Please, let’s not go there,” he snapped.

“I have been forthcoming,” Rowe countered.

“That remains to be seen,” Hawley retorted. “You have been on the job for a few days. You fired nobody.”

Cruz took issue with Rowe’s decision not to fire the agency’s top spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, after recent reporting undermined at least one of his public statements in the 48 hours after the assassination attempt.

The Texas Republican also accused the Secret Service leadership of making a “political decision” to deny requests for extra security for Trump and any Secret Service security for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, before the assassination attempt. After Trump was shot in the ear and Comperatore was killed on July 13, President Joe Biden directed the Secret Service to protect Kennedy.

“And I believe the Biden administration has been suffused with partisan politics,” Cruz added.

Rowe, a 25-year veteran of the agency who has also worked for Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and in the Obama White House, responded indignantly to the remark, tensely responding, “Secret Service agents are not political.”

Cruz pointed out that Secret Service directors are appointed by the president and, therefore, are inherently political. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, are pushing a measure to make the director position Senate-nominated and confirmed, an attempt to take politics out of the leadership selection process.

Rowe also faced criticism from Pete Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, late Tuesday. Even though Rowe, during his Senate testimony, lauded the importance of the Secret Service’s partnership with local law enforcement, he blamed them for failing to cover the American Glass Research building rooftop where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired the shots at Trump and the crowd.

“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,” Rowe conceded during the hearing.

Before the hearing, local Pennsylvania law enforcement officers spoke to numerous media outlets and lawmakers on Capitol Hill and defended their actions that day. Still, their statements and congressional testimony last week demonstrated that at least one of the local officers’ decision to leave a building and look for Thomas Crooks and to leave the top of the building completely unmanned may have given him the window of opportunity to crawl onto roof and assemble his rifle without being detected and possibly shot by an officer with a clear line of sight. 

Rowe’s harsh questioning of the local police officers’ actions earned a harsh rebuke from Yoes, who said the agency was squarely to blame for myriad security failures on the day of the Butler rally.

“The Secret Service still cannot seem to provide any answers almost three weeks after the attempt on the former president’s life, but they don’t seem to have any trouble assigning blame on a partner agency,” Yoes said in a statement. “It is the responsibility of the Secret Service to ensure the safety of their protectee – all that the local agencies can do is assist them with manpower and resources.”