I want to be neutral and make sure that we get to the bottom of it and interview everybody in order to determine if there was more than one person who perhaps exercised bad judgment.
I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days, just like you have, and I will tell you, senator, that I will not rush to judgment, that people will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people [out there to be] unfairly persecuted.
That was acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe, in an exchange with Sen. Josh Hawley. He was unhappy with the “persecuted” comment and wanted to know how many people Rowe had fired. Rowe wasn’t saying and he wouldn’t provide names of SS agents in key posts on July 13. So you might say he’s a company man.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn told Rowe “the public has lost trust in the ability to execute the mission to protect, and I want to know how you feel about the fact that employees in your agency are worried about covering their behind and not worried about protecting a former president.” Blackburn read from an email from an SS counter-sniper about the agency’s evasive tactics on accountability and the need for change before “the next assassination.” Rowe said he was “hurt” by the email and told Blackburn “I’m hurt because my people are hurting right now. We need them.” And so on, pretty much the same as the old boss Kimberly Cheatle, or worse.
Trump was possibly hit by “shrapnel,” according to FBI boss Christopher Wray. That is hard to top but on Monday, FBI deputy director Paul Abbate said in a statement:
Our priorities within that are of course to identify the shooter’s motive—which as the SAC and the EAD will get into, is still not clear—and to determine whether any co-conspirators or associates were involved in or aware of the plot in advance. To be clear, though we have ruled nothing out and we’re leaving no stone unturned in continuing on that course, we have no information at this time that there are any co-conspirators.
For all but the willfully blind, the shooter’s motive was to kill Donald Trump. The FBI investigation, and the “independent security review” with Janet Napolitano, shape up as whitewashes and coverups. While congressional investigators look into it, a few questions come to mind.
Were any Secret Service agents fired after John Hinckley nearly killed President Ronald Reagan? Were any Secret Service agents fired after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? Were any FBI agents or bosses fired after 9/11 and terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon, San Bernardino and Orlando? Why did the FBI fail to prevent those attacks and played no role in the takedown of the terrorists? The people have a right to know.
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