Sen. Roger Marshall and other Republican senators want an independent, apolitical commission to quickly investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and a crisis intervention team to overhaul the Secret Service.
Mr. Marshall of Kansas floated the two-step proposal at a press conference he hosted Tuesday after the Senate concluded a hearing to question acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate about the assassination attempt.
GOP senators said Mr. Rowe’s testimony to the Senate was better than what his predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, gave to the House a day before she resigned. But they said outside intervention is needed to overhaul the Secret Service.
“There are such significant cultural breakdowns within the Secret Service right now, it literally is going to take a crisis management team,” Mr. Marshall said, noting President Biden could appoint one.
“I think he’s fine in his role right now as acting director,” Mr. Marshall said of Mr. Rowe. “But I don’t think that he has the skill set or the objective ability to turn this Secret Service around.”
Sen. Ted Cruz said Mr. Rowe got off to a good start in the hearing by admitting the Secret Service’s failure to secure the roof where a gunman fired at Mr. Trump at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was indefensible.
“But then his testimony was disappointing, that repeatedly, he refused to answer straightforward questions, questions he should have known the answer to,” the Texas Republican said.
Mr. Cruz said he would withhold judgment on whether Mr. Rowe should remain in charge until he sees how the acting director responds to questions he promised to send senators answers to in writing after the hearing.
Among those questions were how many Secret Service agents staff events for President Biden compared to events for Mr. Trump. Mr. Rowe said the “close protection shift” of agents that work most closely with both the current and former president is the same size but he would have to get back to Mr. Cruz with a broader comparison of staffing for entire events.
“I will get you that number so you can see it with your own eyes,” he told Mr. Cruz.
Mr. Rowe also promised several senators he would follow up on their questions about denials of additional security resources the Trump campaign requested in recent years. He disputed a report that he was personally involved in any of the denials but did not have specific details about the number of or reason for denied requests.
Mr. Cruz suggested at the press conference that the decision to withhold security resources for Mr. Trump was political.
“I believe the rational inference from the evidence we know now is it was political bias at the top, at the leadership of the Secret Service, that led to insufficient agents and insufficient resources being devoted to protecting President Trump,” he said.
Senators at the press conference also bemoaned the number of questions that remain unanswered about the security failures at the rally, suggesting federal and congressional probes are falling short and an independent commission is needed to quickly uncover the facts.
“We don’t have the time, nor the staff to get to the answers really quick like we need to,” Mr. Marshall said of the congressional investigations. “I think that this is something that the president could appoint [or] if the House and Senate leadership got together they could do as well.”
He said the House and Senate are so far doing their own investigations and that the most important part of his call for an independent commission is that it be apolitical, comprised
of “experts in the field” not associated with Republicans or Democrats.
The House is in recess until Sept. 9 and the Senate is scheduled to depart for a month-long break on Thursday afternoon, so there is no time for Congress to pass legislation setting up a commission before then.
Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, agreed with the need for an independent investigation. He said the Homeland Security Committee’s bipartisan investigation, which he is involved in as the top Republican on the panel’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, should also continue.
Senate Homeland Security Chairman Gary Peters, Michigan Democrat, said during the hearing that his panel wants to interview the Secret Service agents responsible for securing the event, asking Mr. Rowe to make them available for depositions within days. Mr. Rowe committed to that.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.