Senators said after a closed-door briefing today with acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe that the information provided to them about the assassination attempt on Trump had built up their confidence in the agency’s new leader.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said the agencies “have a pretty good idea what happened,” which they “ought to make that public.” Still, he said, there are unanswered questions about what unfolded at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Robert Wells, the executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, also participated in the briefing.
A Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement that during the briefing, “Acting Director Rowe was committed to providing details and answering questions that could not be answered in Monday’s public Congressional hearing due to operational security and ongoing investigations.”
The statement added that Rowe “told Senate members that he was committed to restoring the American people’s trust in the United States Secret Service, and will provide more information to the public as appropriate.”
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said Rowe was “very forthright.”
“I appreciated his very, very direct answers to our questions. I would expect that he will do that again, at our public hearing next week,” he said.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., agreed that the findings of the investigation should be shared with the public. He also said that Rowe recognized “there will have to be accountability. But … they have to complete their full investigation to find out exactly who was responsible.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said the new acting director “seems extremely committed, in a good way, to changing protocols and making sure this doesn’t happen again.”