New Video Surfaces In The Secret Service Scandal (Ep 2297)

I'm listening to acting Secret Service director Ron Rowe, who is part and parcel to the problem.

Up there and again, tell you he's going to take responsibility, and people are taking responsibility. Yet, amazingly, no one's been fired. There's a dead body, two people shot, and President Trump with a piece of his ear that was shot off. I don't understand this. More evidence has surfaced, more videos. Listen, we're going to do something different today and I want to just ask you to just please be patient. If you sense any problems, tell us in the chat.

It's kind of in a bit of a lull right now, with a lot of Democrats asking stupid questions.

Like, gun control type stuff, but some of the stuff that's been said so far is just ridiculous.

Folks, just be patient with us. We appreciate it. It's going to be quite a show. Hey, you've heard me rave about Beam Stream powder, Go get it now.

Join me.

Switch to America's only Christian conservative mobile provider, Patriot Mobile. Go to patriotmobile.com, Slash Dan or call 972-Patriot. be a free month of service today. patriotmobile.com. Slash Dan. All right, fellas, get the show started.

Has blown the door off this thing in this real, clear politics piece, confirming again what her and I and other good reporters have already told you that. Ronald Rowe, the acting director testifying up there now, cannot possibly be part of an investigative effort. That of a act of grotesque malfeasance that he was a part of. Please read this piece in the newsletter today Bongino.com slash newsletter, please. Acting Secret Service chief played key role in limiting resources for Trump. Susan Crabtree goes through methodically how this guy right now testifying was one of the guys responsible for limiting protective assets to the Donald Trump detail.

Them.

Just as a normal human being, pretend they have nothing to do with this at all. I sold candy in a candy store. If I rob a bank, do you put me in charge of robbing a bank, of the investigation of the actual bank robbery?

Of course not.

If your brother or sister robbed the bank, do you put them in charge of of this investigation of a family member? Because there's a conflict of interest, Ron Rowe has a conflict of interest. He is the answer to a lot of the investigative questions as to why there were insufficient assets available at this site. Folks, the bombshells just keep coming.

Sounds like something I told you. If you'd like to read the email, it's attached to the tweet. Folks, it's right here, we'll put it up on the screen, you can read the whole thing.

The gist of it is this is going to happen again. I warned you about this yesterday that the Secret Service has been a failure for decades. The management has had no vision for this. Guys have been lucky, some guys have managed to do a lot more with a lot less and get around mistakes by being creative.

Again, we're trying our best to pull it up.

They ask, Ron Rowe, What did it take for you to evaluate this guy as a threat? He's there 90 minutes in advance, an hour in advance. He's walking around outside the perimeter with a backpack, which immediately suspicious, he seems to be doing pre-op surveillance. Then they find him with a range finder.

Folks, again, I'm not in this to make friends. You guys do whatever you want out there. I'm telling you to the guys in the agency trying to help me out to fix this thing. God bless you and thank you. I know what you've done.

Nothing was done, nothing was done, and now someone's dead and Donald Trump was shot in the head.

I'm going to, you know, let me read this spot, I'm going to take a quick break.

I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to try to run some of this hearing live. If you don't have sound or anything, these guys are great.

Just help us out here a little bit, you know, you get where I'm going with this. You having trouble sleeping or staying asleep? I was last night waiting for this. Trust me, I've been there.

Commissioned attempt and domestic terrorism.

I don't hear anything.

Assassination attempt. Why make the distinction? What is different about that?

We think it's important to cover all the possibilities here and the reality of what we're dealing with and what we've all seen. Senator, and we've learned lessons from the past, the baseball The tragic shooting at the baseball field was referenced here. We've learned a lesson from that that was not opened properly.

I fear that makes investigation potentially partisan.

They're telling you now this guy's got anti-immigration.

I would like to request that my July 14th letter.

To Attorney General Garland, Mayorkas and Ray.

At the end of the record, be asked for all kinds of information.

Documentation ask a lot of questions, my preliminary findings of July 21st and July 23rd, including timelines, a bunch of questions as well at the end of the record. And then our updated timeline dated today. This goes not only by minute, by second, and we will continue to update this timeline as more information becomes public. This is the way you do investigation.

Without objection, so ordered.

Senator Butler.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, thank you to both of our chairman and ranking members for holding this incredibly important hearing. Critically, for the American people to understand the safety and security that is being provided to our national leaders. Thank you both for being here and for again answering the hard questions. This is a time of, I think, heightened attention.

We don't have definitive evidence yet as to how he got the rifle up there. Based on everything that's been collected thus far photos, video, eyewitness accounts, we do believe he likely had it in the backpack.

Broken down in the backpack.

We're still assessing that. I'm hearing that, too. Our laboratory has taken. He may not be wrong. Looked at the rifle itself and measured that against the backpack itself, and if placed in this backpack, it would extend outside.

Or, as I said to you the night it happened.

He placed it in advance there, buried it or hid it. We don't know that, but probably brought it in the backpack just before 6 p..m. about 5.56. I believe, and based on everything we have, we assess that. He returned to his vehicle at that time, got the backpack and then proceeded back to the area and to the AGR building. And then he's observed, of course, on the roof, just minutes later, holding the backpack in front of him.

Thank you for that, you take me right. Acting director Rowe, thank you for your years of dedicated service and jumping in in a hot time. But you take me right to this point of communication. There's been a lot of conversation about the. And even in your written and verbal testimony. You have talked a lot about the communication and the disparate nature in which it's happening across the different channels.

So when it comes to the locals, they likely have some type of common channel that they work off of in a county or an adjoining municipality. When it comes to the secret Service, we do have various channels for various agents and our uniformed militia officers working specific aspects of that advance.

So it's not possible that the delay in communication or the losing of the thread of tracking. This individual was sort of lost in the commotion of all of the other communications that could have been, or maybe was not, separate from the communication channels that were happening.

Senator, I can only speak to the Secret Service lines of communication and we did not have anything beyond suspicious person that was communicated to us.

What else did you need? Last question Really quickly, because I'm out of time.

Suspicious person with a range finder dude.

Was there any communication with the Secret Service?

We didn't have anything other than.

Some suspicious person with a range finder and a background, as if that's not enough.

That feels like there's been some question by colleagues about why the call wasn't made to delay the event. Help us understand the communication that either was or was not happening directly with the former president's detail to make the call to delay 10 minutes. We've all been to these events, they never happen on time, but to delay while this was being investigated.

So the detail they were operating on their net, which our security room was monitoring, but again, having information of a suspicious individual. There were other calls that day of individuals that came to the attention of law enforcement, of people that needed medical attention. No, no, medical's different. Stop that regarding the assailant that never really rose to a level of we should not put him out there.

He shot him in the head.

Senator Hessen, recognize for your questions.

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank you and Chairman Derman and the ranking members for holding this joint hearing today. And thank you to our witnesses. Not only for being here, but for your careers of service to our country and to the men and women that you lead. I am really grateful that former President Trump is safe. And extend my sympathies to the family of Corey Comperatore, who was fatally shot at the rally, and my sympathies to everyone who was injured.

So, as part of the advance process, Senator, as happened in Butler as well, there's a police meeting and basically that initiates the advance. That's bringing in all the not only emergency management officials, but all the state and local law enforcement agencies that may have aspects of supporting or assisting in that advance. And on that visit.

Yes, I told you this yesterday. Get to the point.

Why were there no agents there? There were walkthroughs of the Butler Farm site with local law enforcement agencies that were supporting that visit. And that was directly as a result of having that police meeting to begin the process of figuring out, dividing up the labor areas of responsibility.

So what you're telling me?-?

Why weren't they there that day? Ask him the question.

The first meeting led to the walkthrough that the Secret Service does with local law enforcement. And that at least some members of directors of the local SWAT team would have been part of that process.

Well, as I understand it, the Beaver County. They were seconded to assist Butler, but the Butler ESU team were part of the advance process.

Okay, how many agents did the Secret Service provide to plan and secure this event, and how many people from state and local law enforcement agencies supported the security of this event?

So, in totality, between law enforcement, state and local and federal, there are 155 personnel at the Butler Farm site that day.

Ask him, how many secret services-.

All combined secret service. It's in the 70s. And then we had support from homeland security investigations that were providing post standards, and then we had approximately 70 or so various Pennsylvania state law enforcement.

Okay, thank you. I want to go to one other issue before my time expires. You've talked today, and in our secure briefing, about the interoperability of the Secret Service's counter drone capability. That it failed early on. And so it didn't catch the drone floating over the site by the shooter.

We're working to determine that right now, Senator, we're getting the redundancies in place.

He's working to. It's been two weeks.

Penruas Authority. It is a little complex, it's not complex, state and locals don't necessarily have this ability to do that. It does require coordination with the FAA because it does, it could impact commercial-.

Okay, thank you and Mr. Chair, I'm just going to follow up. Holy shit, is this a hearing or is this a joke? You're hearing from a lot of folks? But I'm not sure we're really clear on yet. Is how is it that somebody who clearly is arousing concern from law enforcement?

No follow up in writing. Get the answer today. What do you mean? you'll follow up in writing? He still hasn't answered it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Because there was no counter-UAS present, sir.

Yes, there was.

Well, you had a drone system, but you had bandwidth problems. The bandwidth apparently was adequate for the shooter's drone, but not for the secret Service. Can you explain that?

I have no explanation for it, sir.

Then resign or figure it out.

We also know that, in the military context, electronic warfare, or jamming capabilities, are commonly used on the battlefield. Does the Secret Service have jamming capabilities or drones?

We have drones, sir, and when it comes to.

Well, you didn't employ them.

Well, the question is, can you take down a suspicious drone? Because this can be used not only for surveillance by the shooter? Which obviously it was here.

Good question.

But also drones can be weaponized.

Yeah, drop a grenade.

And be used as a threat to the president, in this case President Trump. Do you have the capacity to stop a weaponized drone?

What I will tell you, sir, is that we have technical security measures that we utilize at permanently protective sites. We also have the ability, in a limited fashion at temporary sites. What I can tell you is that on this day, the counter-UAS system had technical difficulties and did not go operational until after 5 o'clock.

And they still walked him out on stage.

So in this case, the shooter had a rifle. But somebody who wanted to kill a president, or a former president, or a candidate for president would not need a rifle. They could use a drone, correct?

It is a potential threat vector.

But not when you have technical difficulties.

Then you just let him out on stage anyway.

Can you explain to us when a suspicious person becomes identified as a threat?

Yes, well, I think. It's also when a weapon or some other dangerous item is then presented.

A range finder would not render someone a threat.

As opposed to somebody who was under suspicion.

I think the range finder is what initially brought him to the attention of local law enforcement.

Oh my gosh.

And why would the president be allowed to take to the stage? While a suspicious person had been identified and before the Secret Service or local law enforcement were able to investigate the circumstances?

So, at that time, senator, suspicion had not risen to the level of threat or imminent harm.

Then find a new job. You made the wrong decision.

Ultimately, that suspicious person did become a threat. Do you think if the president had been asked?

Not to take to the stage during the time it took to investigate, to eliminate that suspicion.

Wouldn't that have been the appropriate way to deal with it?

Senator It certainly is one way to do it. This is a challenge for law enforcement in general. Is that being able to you identify somebody that comes to your attention, it's not a challenge, Ron?

It's your job to determine when this guy is going to try to kill the president. This is a challenge for law enforcement.

The individual actually came to the attention for suspicion. He's on the outer perimeter adjacent to the secured site. Law enforcement is circulating for him, but again, without additional information. At that point, we're not rising to the level yet where perhaps we should pull him off or delay him.

I'm just suggesting that, maybe just maybe.

While that suspicion could be absolutely investigated.

I've always thought of the secret Service as the best of the best. When it comes to their willingness to put themselves in harm's way to protect the life of their person, they are detailed to, and I think you described the very rigorous process by which people are screened, and I think you mentioned the 2 standards of people who are interested in serving. Only a very small fraction of those individuals are actually accepted in the secret service because of the high standards that your agency has.

But explain to me why the Secret Service?

Being an elite law enforcement agency, would delegate to local law enforcement or others.

Who did not meet that same 2 standard?

In other words, isn't that something?

That secret service should have covered, as opposed to delegating it to local law enforcement.

So, senator, again, this is where I went back to earlier, when I said it was a failure to challenge our assumptions. We assumed that the state and locals had it. Don't assume they should have had it at all, you should have had it, and I'm sure you agree.

No doubt about it.

So I think what? We made an assumption that there was going to be uniform presence out there, that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be counter-sniper teams.

In the AGR building.

It's the locals and I can assure you that we're not going to make that mistake again. Moving forward, I've directed our Office of Protective Operations that when our counter-snipers are up.

Their counter-snipers are up.

And they're on the roof as well. We do this all the time with our colleagues in the New York City Police Department when we cover the United Nations General Assembly. And so that is our TTP moving forward.

Director Rowe I would just submit to you that those assumptions can be lethal.

Yeah, and in this case, they were all right. Folks. I'm going to take a quick break, we'll get back to this.

And I've got a lot of.

A big hit to the U.

Blaming the same big themes, blaming the locals, never answering the question why the Secret Service doesn't have enough people there. His correctives are things he's trying to hide himself from that he's been involved in misallocation of assets.

Let's go back, see if he's got any more answers to this who's questioning now?

I mean, the information. I mean, we are sitting 17 days into this and I'm getting asked questions that I can't believe are true, but the public believes it's true. So what you all are doing is you're ruining your reputation, impacting the integrity of the federal government. It makes no sense to me. So are you going to commit to? are you going to do it once a month?

Senator, if I may jump in here first, thank you all for your guidance in this regard. And in fact, we've done. We haven't done something every day, no doubt about that. But you know, we're focused from the FBI side on the investigation. In part, as we laid out here today, we actually based on your guidance. We did a media engagement, not a stand-up-type press conference just yesterday and laid out in full everything that I've shared here.

Oh yeah, folks, they've been very open with the public.

Even beyond that, just in the interest of time.

Justin We must have missed that press conference yesterday during the show.

Because of the intense interest in this.

Nobody trusts these guys. You think they'd be open doing pressers every day? This is the best they can do.

We literally provided everything through media and through journalists, and here all of the information that we have derived from the investigation thus far. We remain committed to do that in full, answering any and all questions and sharing any and all information we have.

Except you're not doing it.

You guys realize the value of going in front of the press.

Right right, except for any piece of information you might actually need.

I mean, you realize, if you don't do it that way, everything gets filtered.

Busy interfering?

And you should be providing, I mean, you should be every day saying, this is what we know now. Like Senator Johnson, put together a timeline, you should have put together a timeline you should have immediately put out. This is what we know right now, and this is what we don't know.

You're a black hole.

You lose the support of the American public because people don't believe you're being direct with them.

No faith in these institutions.

I don't, I completely disagree with your approach. I just want to finish. I've got, I've got, like everybody else. I did a letter July 18th, I haven't gotten any answers yet.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, I'm sure he was emotional. Great, a guy's dead, their family's emotional, too. It's emotional because he's covering his ass.

You share a commitment along with Director Obey to full public disclosure to the maximum extent possible. We can make speeches at you, and I've made one myself in that private setting, about the need for broader, fuller disclosure to the public. Not just in press conferences, but in the course of your investigation, about what you know and feel you can disclose without compromising your investigation, let me ask you. Last week, Senator Peters and Paul, along with Senator Johnson and myself, sent requests to both of your agencies to produce documents. We've only received a handful so far.

No, they won't, they're not, they're gonna lie as long as possible.

We will get them to you as quickly as we can, Senator O'Rourke.

Can we expect them this week?

We will work to meet that deadline, Sir.

And when can we expect all the communications, the text messages that agents have sent to each other? Eventually, all of it is going to come out.

Actually not a bad question.

When can we expect all of those documents?

Maybe the January 6th text, too. Can you get those?

We will gather them up and get them to you, senator, you haven't yet.

You understand, folks, it's been two weeks, we still don't have the text, communications and emails from that day.

And you trust him to give you, honestly, to give them over.

The local law enforcement.

Yeah, exactly, Michael brings up a good point. Oh, they just didn't know.

The shooter on the roof, the snipers that were in place, that it was their job to take them out. But ultimately, doesn't the buck stop with the secret service?

It stops with us, sir. But let me just clarify the perspective that they had on that roof.

The sniper was on, looking out.

This is bullshit. Looking left, they should have been able to see, you can see in that photo in Exhibit A, which we will make part of the record.

So you put your counter-sniper guy in an unadvantageous position and then asked a local guy to take the better position. And never followed up if they didn't take the position. Just to be clear, and you left open the line of sight.

If they'd have just held their post.

Maybe he's blaming them again.

Maybe there's a lot of maybes there, senator.

Somebody needs to be held accountable and I think Senator Graham hit the nail on the head.

Site agent from Pittsburgh, Detail leader for the Trump Dtd.

Suspicious person.

That's your answer.

He won't say that.

Fit the profile 10 to 25 years old, young male.

It's like a four-year-old threat.

I'm sorry, senator, can you repeat the question?

What is the nature of the Iran threat, the threat to former President Trump that has been mentioned?

But we know that, let me be clear here, the terrorist regime of Iran have been targeting people of our country for many, many years now. We've talked about that here before, I want to be clear about that from the F.BI standpoint, we have.

Folks, they've known about this Iran threat for a very long time.

It's a real threat, it's not a joke.

This threat's been going on forever. They're pretending this is new to pretend they just learned about it. This is why they're bumping up Trump's security. They've known about this for years.

A specific or imminent threat on July 13th.

We have no information that there are any co-conspirators or that foreign or domestic, including Iran, related to this. But we're not, I want to be clear, we have no evidence of that. We're not ruling anything out, we're looking into all possibilities and leaving our minds open to that.

Was that on the minds of the Secret Service on July 13th that there might be some threat from Iran?

Sir, we as Deputy Director BATE just said we're aware of the public sentiment and statements of the government of Iran to do harm to Donald J. Trump. And we use a threat-based model.

Well, clearly, it's not working.

Senator Alsophy recognized for your questions. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for your testimony today and for your service, Mr. O'Rourke. I want to begin discussing secret service staffing and the extent to which HSI or other personnel are augmenting or backfilling in adequate secret service capacity. Generally. And on the day of the assassination attempt?

Secret Service can't say we don't have enough people and then say we're putting a president and former president out there and we don't have enough people.

Then get more people or pull your people from investigative work and put them on protection. None of this is complicated.

It was not all clear.

They were working a threat, they keep saying, was suspicious, but not a threat when it was a threat. Acknowledging they made a faulty threat assessment because the guy killed someone and shot President Trump in the head. If you can't make threat assessments, then let's get someone in there who can. And all of this bullshit about, well, we weren't being communicated with, let me tell you a quick story.

He was golfing with Bloomberg.

I'm the lead advance, it's my site, the entire trip is mine. The boss's name was the boss's name at the time. Let's just call him Vinny.

That's not his name, but whatever.

The boss, the special agent in charge of Barack Obama's detail when he was president, let's call him. Vinny is reaching out to me about an air threat. He asked me a thousand times, Hey, where is it? is it coming in? is it low and slow? You want an air threat to be coming in high and fast?

Just vo it for a few minutes. I want you to watch, just keep the sound going, you don't want to, yeah, this one.

I want you to listen to this. This is like two minutes, just play it on VO. Do you understand? Even if they blew everything for 90 minutes and failed to assess this guy as a threat, which he was?

You failed.

At this point, this has clearly gone beyond suspicion to a threat.

Listen, got a guy on a horse here, coming by with a Trump flag, a woman, whatever.

Trump's still talking, you can see the cops looking for this guy. This is Dave Stewart of Butler Pa's video.

His cell phone was confiscated, recently returned.

This is a new video, you hear Trump still talking.

Listen, make yourself small, bro, I don't know what's going on.

Make yourself small.

Everybody knows there's a threat here.

Folks, this video is the most damning piece of information we have left.

You just heard the Dan Bungino show.