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Oh, Ronnie, Honey…Are you going to be okay?

Ron Rowe, via secretservice.gov
The most recent mis-Director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, Jr., was grilled Monday morning at a Senate hearing on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The highlight in the questioning of this weasel came when Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz had an opportunity to confront him. (Enjoy the videos below.)
Under the questioning by Hawley, newly-appointed Director Rowe felt it important to exclaim that since the assassination attempt, he has lost sleep. Yet he hasn’t fired or even put any of the agents responsible for the security at the Butler, Pennsylvania shooting on temporary suspension. According to Ronnie, these incompetent boobs are still in his words “operational” — that should frighten anyone, but especially Donald Trump and his family, and perhaps anyone with plans to attend an upcoming rally for Trump or J.D. Vance.
I’m not sure the hearing was orchestrated in such a way as to elicit the new director’s frustration in not getting a sound sleep, but it is rather a telling insight into this man’s weakness and self-centeredness considering that Corey Comperatore was murdered, two others were critically wounded and the former president almost had his head blown off on live television. Now, I’m just spitballing here, but perhaps the sleep of the families of the shooting victims is vastly more important than Ronnie’s…especially now that they just witnessed what an evasive weasel and a buffoon is running the Secret Service, who continues to keep failed agents in the field.
Published in General
I have questions.
#1. How many total agents do you need to protect the following people? At any given time there are “X” agents and you need to fill those slots 24/7?
#2 If you fired or suspended any of the agents assigned to the Trump detail on July 13, how long would take to replace those agents? Do you demand overtime from everyone else and for how long?
I’ve been retired from federal government for 30 years but if the rules are still similar there are a number of corrective actions that could already have been taken. His own removal rather than promotion is one. I don’t think Cheatle actually made bad decisions herself but was simply MIA. If there were operational failures by SS personnel at the Butler site, such as allowing Trump to take the stage while facing an unresolved known threat, then career protective employees can be relieved of duty while disciplinary actions are taken. These are actions that should not be delayed.
Well, Dr. Jill isn’t making any new campaign events, is she? Perhaps a few agents on her detail for rallies can now be reassigned.
With regard to your questions on the number of agents necessary, I believe this is what Senator Cruz was attempting to ascertain but couldn’t get an answer to.
To be clear, there were operational failures up and down the chain of command. If it’s true that the security site plan isn’t signed off by anyone with executive authority prior to an event then that needs to change immediately.
There are a lot of words that you can use to describe those who reach the top of a bureaucracy. “Best” and “brightest” are generally not among them.
And not on the list are the other protectees. How many are deemed to require such protection?
What I want to know is where Ronny gets his hair cut? What is that style?
If he denied counter-sniper coverage for the Trump rally after he had seen an arial map of the venue, “dunce” would seem to be applicable. If he did so without that modest amount of research, you can add both “incompetent” and “dunce” to the list.
So the way to prevent bureaucratic cockups is to add another layer of bureaucracy so that non-field agents have the final say over security?
I believe Cheatle said that the core Secret Service responsibility is to provide full-time protection for 36 people.
I don’t know that all the cockups were a result of bureaucracy rather than individual negligence.
But let’s talk about this particular cockup, shall we? The AGR building’s rooftop, within the range of most rifles and a clear line of sight to the podium was designated by the site manager to be outside the Secret Service perimeter…so, yes if a highly ranked Secret Service official who had years/decades of field experience in setting up security for outdoor venues had actually seen the site plans prior to the event, there would have been a chance that the plan was amended…and there actually would be an individual accountable…not a bureaucracy. And maybe Mr. Comperatore would be alive today.
He looks to be cut from the same cloth as Jon Tester (D-Mon).
The surest way to lose the next war is to continually fight the last one. So when a field agent wants to make a last minute change it will have to be approved by someone farther up the chain. If that someone isn’t available then the change doesn’t happen. Flexibility and the ability to react in real time is what’s needed.
I understand the desire for accountability, I don’t understand the need for top down command and control.
This is a Democrat feature.
You make it sound as though setting up the security of the site happened on the same day as the event. Secret Service made their security plans for the event on site some 5 days before it occurred. So, this is not a battlefield decision in the midst of a war. But nice try.
Nice try? I don’t care if they had 5 days, 10 days or 5 months to make their plans. You’re going to take people with autonomy and initiative and turn them into obedient little bureaucrats afraid to make changes to “the plan” because you’ve increased the chances that they will be seen as insubordinate and that they are unable to be a team player. All plans fail at the first contact with the enemy.
My favorite response: “We do not have a bureaucracy, we have a process.” I think we have identified the problem. Processes do not run themselves.
Was there a top dog at that event or was it run by committee? If there was a person in charge at the site, why do we not know his/her name?
If my own experience is instructive, the point of the processes is CYA and to let one fail in an acceptable manner. No one is ever held accountable.
Best to make the best use of the limited resources you have by properly motivating them with fear and other consequences.
Erik Prince could replace all USSS agents that day and they would be better at half the price.
I’ve watched enough hours of these monsters testifying to know that the agents on the ground, if they succeed at all, do so over the corpses of their management. Fortunately, Trump appears to have some acquaintance with the concept of, “You’re fired.”
Well, It’s called oversight and what you’ve described is not at all what I lined out. A plan is drawn up and it submitted to one person up the chain for approval. Please keep in mind that when Cheatle was called before the House hearing she said that no one in any position of authority approved the site plan. Not her. Not anyone. She couldn’t or wouldn’t even say whether this was a standard operating procedure.
So, the site agent who established the perimeter was indeed autonomous. How’d that work out? The established SS perimeter was a joke and the agent should be fired immediately.. You may want to listen to Dan Bongino’s take on all this and the whistleblowers who have been contacting him, since he was an SS agent for 12 years, was responsible for establishing the security plans and perimeters for numerous events, and has pointed out the same mistakes and issues I and others have on this bloody but preventable shooting.
The questioning was fair. About as good as it gets from Congress. The FBI and USSS answered nothing and provided Blue Anon fodder. I did learn some things though:
* the USSS has a culture of incompetence. They suck at their job.
* the USSS does not know what their job is. They claim they could not imagine somebody would attempt to do harm to a protectee. They got away with that statement.
* the USSS has a culture of lying to cover their incompetence.
* the USSS has a culture of partisanship.
This is not really a USSS problem, this is Biden/Obama whole of government problem.
That is absurd thinking. Clearly Brian was saying that somebody with authority be responsible for the security plan. People that remodel bathrooms for a living have better sign-off processes and clarity of responsibility than the USSS.
You’re playing word games. “Executive authority” does not mean a layer of bureaucracy unless you decide to make it mean that.
There ya go. Good way to put it.
What do you mean that’s as good as it gets? The SSman distinguished between requests for this particular event and other requests in general. That’s a good distinction. Did Cruz acknowledge that? I like Cruz a lot and can’t stand it when he goes stupid, so I quit watching.
You should listen to the exchange again. Cruz was specifically asking about the total number of requests by the Trump detail to SS management. Rowe deflected and was being evasive by only responding about the request for the Butler event and eventually had to admit that he didn’t have a count for the number of requests the Trump detail made over the past few years. Rowe should have had that information at his fingertips. That he didn’t suggests that he was being deliberately evasive because the answer would be embarrassing to the agency. His evasiveness then extended to not responding to Cruz’s question about the size of the SS details for Biden, the First Lady, or Trump. My contention that Rowe is a weasel stands.
There are 37 protectees (per a list from Tom Rogan), so it could surely be trimmed. And most of those who have been specifically threatened by Iran are not on the list.