Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., questioned U.S. Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe and FBI deputy director Paul Abbate in a hearing Tuesday.
Welch asked Rowe to explain why direct action was not taken when a local law enforcement officer first saw the shooter and circulated a photo of him to other security personnel. Welch suggested that a lack of clarity in operational procedures led to officers not knowing what to do once a threat was flagged.
“Those folks, they did their job here up to a point where they identified this person, passed information along, but nobody acted. The empowerment to that local officer, I would think has to come, be transmitted through the Secret Service, maybe in the earlier briefings where you say, ‘Folks, you see somebody suspicious, you engage that suspicious person,'” Welch said.
Rowe agreed with Welch’s assessment of the lack of clear collaboration between local law enforcement and the Secret Service during the rally.
“I don’t disagree, Senator, and it goes back to my comments at the beginning of the hearing that we need to be very direct to our local law enforcement counterparts that they understand exactly what their expectations,” Rowe 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 former President Donald 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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