GOP Senators In Furious Exchanges While Grilling New Secret Service Boss Over Trump Shooting: ‘Stop Interrupting Me!’

GOP lawmakers got into several furious exchanges with Ronald Rowe Jr. while grilling the new Secret Service boss in a tense hearing about the agency’s failure to protect former President Donald Trump, 78, from the recent attempt on his life.

Rowe, who became Acting Director of the Secret Service after his predecessor Kimberly Cheatle resigned in the wake of another contentious hearing, faced off against Republican Senators including Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

Hawley, 44, shouted at Rowe as he demanded to know why no agents have been fired over the massive security breach that led to 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opening fire from a rooftop near Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania rally.

He snapped: “Isn’t the fact that a former president was shot, that a good American is dead, that other Americans were critically wounded – isn’t that enough mission failure for you to say that the person who decided that building should not be in the security perimeter probably ought to be stepped down?”

Rowe held his ground and pushed back against Hawley, saying: “I want to be neutral and make sure that we get to the bottom of it and interview everybody in order to determine if there was more than one person who perhaps exercised bad judgment ... What I need to know is exactly what happened, and I need my investigators to do their job, and I cannot put my thumb on the scale.”

He said “this could have been our Texas School Book Depository”, a reference to where Lee Harvey Oswald perched as he shot President John F. Kennedy in 1963, adding: “I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days just like you have. I will tell you ... people will be held accountable. And I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people unfairly persecuted ... We have to be able to have a proper investigation into this, Senator.”

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Cruz, 53, also got heated as he pressed Rowe on reports that the Secret Service denied repeated requests from Trump for additional security for years leading up to the assassination attempt.

After Rowe refused to name names when asked who made the decision, Cruz accused the agency of making “a political decision to deny these requests” guided by the Biden administration – while Rowe insisted that “Secret Service agents are not political”.

Cruz pushed Rowe on the difference between the number of agents guarding Trump versus the number of agents who guard President Joe Biden. Rowe replied: “There is a difference between the sitting president of the United States ... the difference? National command authority to launch a nuclear strike, sir!”

As the two men talked over each other, Cruz fired back: “Stop interrupting me. You are refusing to answer clear and direct questions.”

Rowe testified he was was “ashamed” at the security gaps and pledged to discipline any agents who failed to do their jobs, admitting: “That roof should have had better coverage, and we will get to the bottom of if there were any policy violations."

“What I saw made me ashamed. As a career law enforcement officer, and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”

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