The House task force investigating the attempted assassinations of President-elect Donald Trump will hold a hearing Thursday with Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe as it readies its final report for release.
The hearing will be Mr. Rowe’s first testimony to Congress since the presidential election and since the Secret Service concluded its internal review of the first assassination attempt on Mr. Trump during his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The task force’s hearing with Mr. Rowe will focus on the Secret Service’s failures surrounding the July 13 rally, where a gunman shot at Mr. Trump, grazing his ear, killed one rallygoer and injured two others.
The bipartisan panel will also ask about a separate Sept. 15 incident in which the Secret Service stopped a would-be assassin posted outside Mr. Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, before he could fire any shots.
Following the hearing on Thursday, the task force will convene a business meeting to consider its final report, which is due Dec. 13.
The task force released a 53-page interim staff report in October detailing evidence it obtained in the first phase of its investigation, which was focused on local law enforcement’s role in security preparations for the July 13 rally and its response to the shooter.
The report said the evidence showed inadequate planning and coordination between the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners ahead of the rally and “fragmented lines of communication and unclear chains of command” on the day of the event contributed to the assassination attempt.
The second phase of the investigation has been focused on the Secret Service’s role, the findings of which will likely be shared during Thursday’s hearing.
Mr. Rowe has not testified before Congress since a July 30 hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary committees. The former has been conducting its own investigation into the assassination attempts and released an interim report in September finding a series of Secret Service failures related to the planning and execution of security operations “directly contributed” to the July 13 attempt.
The Secret Service’s last permanent director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned 10 days after the first assassination attempt amid pressure from lawmakers who accused her of dodging questions and accountability.
Mr. Rowe, who was the deputy director, has been serving as the acting director ever since but is unlikely to keep the position permanently amid a push to overhaul the agency.
An independent review panel of former law enforcement officials that investigated the Butler assassination attempt recommended the next Secret Service director come from outside the agency to inject “fresh thinking” into an organization that has “become bureaucratic, complacent, and static.”
Mr. Trump is in a position to decide who should be the next permanent director of the Secret Service but has not signaled his intentions.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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