(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last week, Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe ducked and dodged questions from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about who approved security cuts to former President Donald Trump’s security detail.
“I don’t know if I did or didn’t,” Rowe said when asked if he approved a false July 14 statement from the Secret Service denying that it cut Trump’s security. The Secret Service later had to walk back the false denial and admit that it has, in fact, denied Trump’s request for security assets—though the agency said it approved all requests for the deadly July 13 Butler rally.
But according to a Secret Service whistleblower, Rowe might have been the one spearheading the cuts to Trump’s security.
According to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a whistleblower told him that the Secret Service Counter Surveillance Division—which performs threat assessment of event sites before the event occurs—did not perform its typical evaluation of the Butler site and was not present that day. The whistleblower further alleged that Rowe personally directed significant cuts to the CSD, up to and including reducing the division’s manpower by 20%, Hawley said in an Aug. 1 letter to Rowe.
🚨🚨 NEW – Whistleblower tells me Secret Service Acting Director Rowe personally directed cuts to the USSS agents who do threat assessments for events. Whistleblower says those agents were NOT present in Butler – and some of them had warned of security problems for months pic.twitter.com/v9igQ5L7FZ
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 1, 2024
“This is significant because CSD’s duties include evaluating potential security threats outside the security perimeter and mitigating those threats during the event. The whistleblower claims that if personnel from CSD had been present at the rally, the gunman would have been handcuffed in the parking lot after being spotted with a rangefinder,” Hawley told Rowe.
“The whistleblower also alleges retaliation against those within the Secret Service who expressed concern about the security at President Trump’s events,” Hawley added.
Hawley requested a trove of information from Rowe about the security cuts, including records during his time as Deputy Director in which policy and personnel changes were made to CSD. He also requested the number of Secret Service agents who have raised concerns about security practices within the Secret Service and are currently facing disciplinary action.
Additionally, Hawley asked for a breakdown of Secret Service personnel at the July 13 rally by division or unit.
The senator asked for that information to be provided to him by Thursday.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
