by Susan Crabtree
Just days after Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe denied playing a direct role in rejecting repeated requests for added security measures and assets for former President Trump, whistleblowers have come forward refuting those claims and blaming Rowe for some of the agency’s security failures that led to the July 13 assassination attempt that nearly killed Trump and left rallygoer Corey Comperatore dead and two others wounded.
Other whistleblowers are coming forward citing more systemic problems with the Secret Service, the vaunted agency whose primary job is to protect presidents, vice presidents and former presidents and their families.
Those deep-seated long-term problems include nepotism and other non-merit-based favoritism, lowering standards and cutting corners in hiring – including failure to pass polygraph tests and accepting past hard drug use, retaliation for voicing security and other concerns, as well as uneven disciplinary action.
Sen. Josh Hawley on Thursday sent a letter to Rowe citing “disturbing information” from at least one whistleblower citing Secret Service planning failures for the Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign event “and your own involvement.”
Hawley said he had received detailed information that Rowe personally directed “significant cuts” to the Countersurveillance Division, a department that performs threat assessment evaluations of event sites before the events occur and did not perform its typical evaluation of the Butler site and was not present that day.
“This is significant because CSD’s duties include evaluating potential security threats outside the security perimeter,” Hawley wrote, adding that a CSD’s threat assessment likely would have provided more measures to protect the rooftop of the American Glass Research building where shooter Thomas Crooks perched and opened fire on Trump and the crowd.
“The whistleblower claims that if personnel from the CSD had been present at the rally, the gunman would have been handcuffed in the parking lot after being spotted with a rangefinder,” Hawley continued. “You acknowledged in your Senate testimony that the American Glass Research complex should have been included in the security perimeter for the Butler event.”
The unnamed whistleblower further alleged that Rowe personally directed significant cuts to the CSD, including reducing the division’s manpower by 20%, Hawley asserted. “You did not mention this in your Senate testimony when asked directly to explain manpower reductions.”
Rowe specifically denied being involved in any decisions that rejected requests for added security for Trump over the course of two years, and disputed accusations that he was involved in decision-making limiting the assignment of counter sniper teams to any event not in driving distance to D.C. RealClearPolitics reported on those two accusations earlier this week, citing sources within the Secret Service community.
Whistleblowers also accused Secret Service leaders and managers of retaliating against individuals who expressed concerns about the security of Trump’s events.
The flurry of anonymous accusations includes an assertion that after an event with a Trump golf tournament in August of last year Secret Service personnel present expressed “serious concern” that the agency’s reliance on local law enforcement was not adequate to meet security needs because these local officers were not properly trained and “otherwise prepared” to carry out the tasks delegated to them.
“Further, Secret Service personnel expressed alarm that individuals were admitted to the event without vetting,” Hawley wrote. “The whistleblower alleges that those who raised such concerns were retaliated against.”
The Missouri Republican, who sits on the Judiciary and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees, asked Rowe to produce a series of documents during his time as deputy director.
During Rowe’s first appearance before a joint hearing of both of those panels on Tuesday, Hawley was one of the acting director’s harshest critics. He and Rowe got into a shouting match over the agency’s failure to fire anyone in the wake of the assassination attempt against Trump, the biggest Secret Service security failure since former President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
Hawley pressed Rowe on the failure to surveil the rooftop where shooter Thomas Crooks opened fire on Trump and the crowd.
“You’re asking me, senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing. I acknowledge, this was a failure—,” Rowe retorted during the questioning.
“Is it not prima facie that somebody has failed? The former president was shot!” Hawley responded.
Rowe said he has “lost sleep” over the handling of the assassination attempt since the incident occurred, and assured Hawley that he would hold people accountable “with integrity” and not “rush to judgement.”
“Then fire somebody to hold them accountable!” Hawley shouted.
But Rowe insisted that he needed to allow the FBI investigation to continue in order to gather all the facts and determine culpability. “And I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people unfairly persecuted,” Rowe countered, raising his voice.
The senator then moved on to grilling Rowe on reports that the agency denied repeated requests for additional security from agents charged with protecting Trump and others. Some of those requests were made in writing, several sources in the Secret Service community tell RCP. The repeated rejections for more security assets for Trump included requests for additional magnetometers, more agents to screen attendees at large rallies and outdoor events, as well as counter snipers and counter surveillance and other specialty teams.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on July 15 called those reports “unequivocally false,” but Secret Service officials have since acknowledged that some denials may have occurred in certain circumstances over the last two years, although not for the July 13 Butler rally. After categorically denying the denials had occurred, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi four days later told the Washington Post that some denials may have occurred and was “reviewing documentation to understand the specific interactions better.”
Under Hawley’s harsh grilling, Rowe also denied RCP’s reports that he was directly involved in the decision-making for the rejections of extra security for Trump.
Hawley last week cited whistleblowers’ disclosures to his office in asserting that local law enforcement officers were assigned to the rooftop where Crooks fired eight bullets, but failed to remain on the metal roof because of the hot temperatures in Butler that day. Rowe testified that he didn’t know if the Secret Service had assigned anyone to the roof that day and was still trying to determine that, but that local police officers had “posted up inside” the building.
Other whistleblowers have taken legal action against the agency for what they describe as a culture of fear, favoritism, and unfair retribution. Several whistleblowers and sources within the Secret Service community have come forward to RealClearPolitics in the wake of the assassination attempt against Trump to share complaints that they were unfairly retaliated against for raising complaints about managers not following Secret Service protocols or making security decisions that could harm those the agency is tasked to protect.
In one case, a Secret Service whistleblower disclosed to his chain of command that a Secret Service manager whose son, a so-called “legacy” applicant, had failed a polygraph examination as part of the hiring process discussed with the whistleblower’s supervisor his desire that the polygraph be retested without cause, a violation of agency protocol.
The special agent, who requested anonymity out of fear for his safety, has complained that he was retaliated against for those internal polygraph disclosures – that agency managers reprimanded him for asking polygraph questions to demonstrate whether a candidate had provided false information about drug use on the application for a security clearance, known as a Standard Form 86 or “SF-86.”
At one point, that disciplinary action included a suspension of his polygraph examiner duties “pending addition counseling,” according to a complaint the special agent filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative prosecutorial agency that operates as a secure channel for employee whistleblowing.
The special agent has also accused agency leaders of failing to consider him for certain assignments with at least one supervisory citing his history of outspoken complaints about favoritism and managers’ failure to follow polygraph protocols.
That case is pending before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent quasi-judicial agency created to protect promotions and discipline against partisan political activity and other prohibited personnel practices. The board recently agreed that the case has enough merits to proceed to a hearing.
That whistleblower’s case helps shed light on the Secret Service’s lowering of hiring standards for applicants as the agency has struggled with a manpower shortage over the last decade, as well as low employee morale. In recent years, the Secret Service has ranked either dead last or near the bottom of a government employee survey of job satisfaction conducted annually by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. The agency’s most recent ranking for 2023 is near the bottom at No. 375 out of 432 agencies.
In an effort to meet staffing goals, the agency has repeatedly changed its standards for past drug use disqualifying applicants over the last seven years. LSD and crack cocaine use no longer carry a lifetime ban, and candidates could have habitually used marijuana and still be eligible for hire if they haven’t used the substance within the last year.
Still, a “knowing and willful” false statement on a SF-86 about drug use or other claims can disqualify a potential hire.
An independent panel appointed by the Department of Homeland Security in 2014 found “more than half of applicants fail the polygraph and are unable to receive the necessary security clearances” to become special agents and Uniform Division officers. The Secret Service’s Security Clearance Division director told House investigators at the time that in response to the high rate of polygraph failures, agency leaders had pushed to “cut corners” and “hire, hire, hire,” which ultimately hurt the elite agency’s ability minimize national security risks.
A separate source within the Secret Service community complained that under the leadership of former agency Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned amid bipartisan criticism after her July 21 congressional testimony, management’s cost-cutting efforts included halting the required monthly shooting practice.
“It’s absolutely insane that we stopped shooting every month,” the source told RCP. “I was consistently receiving emails from training [managers] that my new [Special Agents] needed remedial instruction because they couldn’t qualify.”
Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research, a nonprofit legal organization that assists whistleblowers in documenting and reporting government corruption, is representing the retired special agent who complained about improper polygraph retesting in his retaliation case against the agency. Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt is an attorney who previously worked at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board and for the House Oversight Committee, as well as Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, a longtime champion for whistleblowers.
Leavitt played a key role in the House Oversight panel’s previous efforts to reform the Secret Service in 2014 after a prostitution scandal involving several Secret Service agents in Colombia erupted into public view, and a series of a fence-jumping and other security lapses made headlines for more than a year.
A congressional report Leavitt co-authored in 2015 found that many Secret Service employees believed legacy employees were given special treatment.
“Whistleblowers keep coming out of the woodwork because Secret Service management won’t just be forthcoming and admit all the ways their agency screwed up,” Leavitt said in a X.com post Thursday night in response to Hawley’s latest whistleblower assertion. “Why? It’s not in their DNA. And that means we are going to continue to hear from courageous rank and file Secret Service whistleblowers, day by day, disclosure by disclosure.”
“God bless ’em for bringing the truth to the American people,” he added.
– – –
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.
