Did the Secret Service chief perjure himself after screaming match?

WASHINGTON (PNN) - December 7, 2024 - After a screaming match between acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe and Texas Rep. Pat Fallon (Tex.) erupted at a Thursday House hearing on the attempted assassination attempts against President-elect Donald Trump, new details are emerging about the circumstances that sparked the outburst.

Several Secret Service sources question whether Rowe has perjured himself during the explosive exchange.

The face-off occurred during the final meeting of the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of President Trump when Fallon produced a photo of Rowe standing behind President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at a 9/11 memorial event in New York City in September. Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance appeared on the right side of the photo.

The congressman, a Texas Republican, pressed Rowe on why he had positioned himself behind Biden when normal Secret Service protocol would place the most senior member of the president’s detail in that position to provide the best protection to the president. The event took place on Sept. 11, just days before the second assassination attempt against President Trump at one of the president-elect’s golf courses in Florida.

At the time, the outcome of the election was still unknown, and Rowe was trying to prove that he could quickly rehabilitate the agency’s image after the cataclysmic failures during the July 13 Butler, Pennsylvania rally that nearly led to Trump’s assassination and did result in the death of Corey Comperatore, a retired local fireman.

Fallon accused Rowe of endangering Biden’s and Harris’ lives by taking their top two agents out of position because he “wanted to be visible because you were auditioning for the job.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promoted Rowe from deputy director to interim chief of the agency in the wake of the Butler rally. The previous director, Kimberly Cheatle, had resigned after disastrous testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Rowe responded swiftly and angrily to Fallon’s line of questions.

“Congressman, what you’re seeing is the [Special Agent in Charge of the Detail] out of the picture’s view,” Rowe said, “and that is a day where we remember the more than 3,000 people that died on 9/11,” Rowe added. “I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center. I was there at Fresh Kills,” Rowe added, referencing a Staten Island landfill where debris was taken.

Fallon quickly interjected, “I’m not asking you that.”

“I was there, congressman!” Rowe bellowed while pointing aggressively at Fallon before accusing him of acting like a “bully” and politicizing 9/11.

Rowe was already on edge from Fallon’s pointed questioning just minutes before. The congressman asked Rowe whether he knew that President Trump was facing a threat from a foreign actor while the Secret Service advance team was preparing for the Butler rally, a likely reference to assassination plots by Iran against Trump’s life. If he did know, the congressman asked why he didn’t intervene to provide a counter-surveillance unit or a full Counter Assault Team, top Secret Service security assets, in addition to the counter snipers the agency provided These additional assets, Fallon asserted, could have prevented the assassination attempt from taking place.

An eyewitness to the 9/11 memorial this year tells RealClearPolitics that Rowe’s decision to take the place of the top two agents in charge of the president’s and vice president’s detail spurred resentment among the ranks. The source said there were toe marks placed on the ground with every attendee’s name and title. Rowe’s original toe mark was three rows back.

Instead of simply standing where he was designated, Rowe disregarded the arrangement and placed himself behind Biden and Harris. The leaders of those details then had to squeeze in so they could be within arm’s reach of the president and vice president if they faced any threats. The source also noted that Rowe’s wife, a longtime Secret Service employee, was the photographer for the event that day and was snapping “a ton of action shots of Ron standing in his place of prominence.”

During Thursday’s testy shouting match, Fallon demanded to know whether Rowe had a gun and radio on him during the ceremony, an apparent reference to whether he was operational and equipped to respond to a threat against Biden’s or Harris’ lives if any arose.

Rowe retorted that he did have a radio and a gun on him at the ceremony and insisted that the protective mission was not compromised by his decision to move to a more prominent position. The Secret Service press office provided a lengthy explanation of his Secret Service roles in New York City after the 9/11 attacks but didn’t respond to a follow-up question from RealClearPolitics on whether he stood by those remarks about having a gun and radio on him during the ceremony.

Rank-and-file agents were incensed over Rowe’s screaming match and said they doubted the acting director’s testimony that he had a radio during the 9/11 ceremony this year because he wasn’t wearing an earpiece to hear the intelligence chatter on a radio. They also said top Secret Service officials usually do not wear earpieces or ballistic missile vests to ceremonies like the one on 9/11 because they spend most of their time meeting with other officials, not monitoring radio traffic for threats.

Addressing criticism that the agents involved in the poor planning for and execution of the Butler rally, have not been held accountable, Rowe expressed frustration with the length of time it takes to provide “accountability” for the failures.

“Let me be clear: there will be accountability and that accountability is occurring,” he said. “It is an extensive review that requires time to ensure due process and the pace of this process, quite frankly, it does frustrate me, but it is essential that we recognize the gravity of our failure.”