Acting Secret Service director says he’s ‘ashamed’ gunman was able to get on the Trump rally roof… and reveals he laid in the spot where the shooter opened fire to see the failures himself

Current Secret Service chief Ronald Rowe admitted he had no defense when asked why the roof where Thomas Matthew Crooks shot former President Trump was left open.

Crooks fired eight rounds at Trump from a nearby unsecured rooftop, killing veteran firefighter Corey Comperatore, seriously wounding two others and grazing Trump in the ear.

“I went to the roof of the AGR building where the assailant was firing shots, and I lay on my stomach to evaluate his line of sight. What I saw embarrassed me as a career police officer and a 25-year veteran of the Secret Service. I can’t defend why that roof wasn’t better secured,” he told Congress Tuesday.

“When I was in that position, I couldn’t, and I don’t, understand why there wasn’t better cover or at least no one looking at that roof line when they were posted there,” said Rowe, who noted that Crooks’ head would have been clearly visible from the unmanned roof.

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was criticized for not visiting the site of the meeting prior to her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill last week, leading to her resignation.

Acting Director Rowe and Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate testified Tuesday during a rare joint Senate hearing.

Thirty seconds before Crooks fired his shots, local police radioed the Secret Service for warning of a man with a gun on the roof. About three and a half minutes earlier, he had been “seen on the roof.”

Abbate revealed that the FBI had identified a social media account they believed belonged to the shooter

“Over 700 comments were made from this account in 2019-2020. Some of these comments, if ultimately attributed to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant themes to embrace political violence and are described as extreme in nature,” Abbate said.

Rowe said he has implemented a number of changes at the Secret Service since the shooting, including security plans that are reviewed by multiple supervisors before being implemented, increased use of drones, increased resources for communications at secure locations and “quickly” approving requests for personnel at secure locations with heightened security.

Rowe and Abbate spoke to the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees after their boss, Cheatle, resigned last week following a six-hour hearing in which Republicans and Democrats accused her of obstruction.

In his opening statement, Rand Paul, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, revealed that local police told his office they had alerted the Secret Service to the vulnerabilities of the roof where Thomas Matthew Crooks shot the president.

“Local law enforcement told my staff that they specifically reported the building’s vulnerability to the Secret Service, and were told that something would be done about it. It is clear that these vulnerabilities have not been addressed.”

New text messages on Monday revealed that local police officers attending former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, were severely understaffed in the lead-up to the assassination attempt.

During the tragic rally, Trump was shot in the ear and a former volunteer firefighter was killed after 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire from the roof of a nearby building, just outside the security zone.

New shocking text messages between Beaver County emergency responders prior to the protest reveal staffing shortages.

On July 8, five days before the rally, an anonymous team leader wrote in a text chat that they had been “asked by Butler to help” with Trump’s rally and that they needed six people to cover the 12-hour shift. Two offered to do it all the time, and another two offered to split the Saturday shift.

The police chief wrote in the message that he had only a few people available to manage the event because “everyone else is either at work, on vacation, or injured.”

The previously unseen messages also paint a nearly 90-minute timeline between Crooks’ identification and his deadly fire.

New reports, bodycam footage and police debriefings were obtained by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who is overseeing the event.

The reports indicated that police were aware of Crooks, whom they had spotted more than an hour and a half before Trump took the stage.

At 4:26 p.m., a Beaver County sniper ended his shift and left the AGR building, where Crooks had access and was able to fire.

As the sniper left the building, he sent a text message about a suspicious person he had seen, who turned out to be Crooks.

“Someone followed our lead, snuck in and parked next to our cars, just so you know,” one message read.

“I’m letting you know because you saw me go outside with my gun and put it in my car so he knows you guys are there.”

The officer noted that he was sitting at a picnic table, “approximately 50 yards from the exit.”

“That bike wasn’t there when I drove away. Maybe they should check that car,” they continued.

Later at 5:38 p.m., more than 30 minutes before Trump was shot, officers exchanged photos of Crooks, who was then listed as a “suspicious person.”

‘Child learning (sic) around the building we are in. I saw him looking at the stage with a rangefinder. FYI. If you want to warn SS snipers, they have to watch out.

Another officer asked in which direction Crooks was headed, to which an unnamed officer replied, “If I had to guess, back. Away from the event.”

This comes after a whistleblower revealed last week that the Secret Service obstructed the use of drone technology to map the site of the Butler rally where an assassin attempted to shoot former President Donald Trump.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) revealed last week that a whistleblower told his office the night before the meeting that the Secret Service had “repeatedly rejected offers from a local law enforcement partner to use drone technology to secure the meeting.”

The whistleblower alleged that after the shooting, the Secret Service “changed course and asked the local partner to deploy drone technology to monitor the location thereafter.”