Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., spoke in a hearing Tuesday where U.S. Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe and FBI deputy director Paul Abbate testified on the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
Lankford asked Rowe what happened in the 30 seconds that lapsed between the first warning of a suspect with a gun and the first shots fired.
“There’s also the word gun coming through one of the radio frequencies, I would think that would be communicated pretty quickly to everybody across the spectrum,” Lankford said. “Thirty seconds is not long, but that’s an NFL play plus a huddle plus the next play. I mean that’s, that’s quite a bit of time still to be able to respond.”
Rowe said within that time period a team was dispatched to the area.
“There’s other communications where the local police are talking about deploying a QRF (quick reaction force) and responding and that they’ve got the building surrounded, so it’s not in a void,” Rowe said.
But Lankford wanted to know why the former president was left on stage.
“I’m trying to be able to figure out how that didn’t get communicated out to the people that were directly in front of the former president at that point,” he said.
The joint hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Senate Judiciary Committee was the latest to examine what investigators have learned about the shooter who attempted to assassinate Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, as well as the security failures that preceded the deadly shooting.
Rowe, who since 2023 had been serving as deputy director of the Secret Service, was appointed acting director after Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation.
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