Democratic Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal made some stunning comments on Thursday following a closed-door briefing by acting Secret Service director Richard Rowe.
Rowe testified before a joint committee looking into the security failures during the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. The Joint Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Senate Committee on the Judiciary will release an interim report "shortly" according to Blumenthal.
"I think the American people are going to be shocked, astonished, and appalled by what we will report to them about the failures by the Secret Service in this assassination attempt on the former president," Blumenthal told Fox News. "But I think they also ought to be appalled and astonished by the failure of the Department of Homeland Security to be more forthcoming, to be as candid and frank, as it should be to them in terms of providing information."
Blumenthal wouldn't be specific about what the interim report might say. But it's been made amply clear that the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security failed on almost every level in their failed effort to protect the former president.
"It will be coming out shortly. And it'll only be an interim report because there's a lot more information that we need to find," Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told Fox News. "And we hope once this report comes out we can get the additional information necessary to have a complete report of what happened, as well as steps of what we need to do in the future to make sure that this never happens."
Two months after the assassination attempt the Secret Service and Homeland Security are still dragging their feet in giving this Senatorial committee what they need.
“There is a lot that we don’t know yet, and I think there is some frustration that was voiced, I think with Acting Director Rowe,” Sen. Ron Johnson (Wisc) told reporters. “He’s making the commitment to provide more information.”
Why hasn't he handed over the information before this?
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said the sit-down with the Secret Service yielded “a lot of information,” but the panel had “a ways to go” and would release an interim report “shortly.”
“It’s going to identify very specific errors that were made in this,” added committee Ranking Member Rand Paul (R-Ky.). “To me, it’s still inexcusable that a guy for 90 minutes before a rally has a rangefinder and you don’t stop the proceeding.”
Peters, Paul, Johnson and Blumenthal stressed that the probe has been and the report will be entirely bipartisan. Johnson said he expects the preliminary document to be released before Congress breaks for its pre-election recess at the end of this month.
Many in Congress want more heads to roll.
“Unquestionably and indisputably, there needs to be more accountability," said Blumenthal. "People need to be held responsible.”
“Without accountability, this kind of failure and lapse will happen again because there needs to be that sense that someone is the point person,” he said.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) recounted some of the obvious failures by the Secret Service and said "The people in charge of security that day shouldn’t be doing it again.”
“At 6:08 [p.m.], a man on a roof should’ve stopped him,” Paul recounted to reporters after the briefing. “They say the walkie-talkies didn’t communicate with each other. Someone should’ve been yelling from the rooftops.”
“That information was radioed to the security tent, the Security Command and Control, about 6:10 [p.m.], there’s still a few seconds left,” he said.
Can the Secret Service be fixed? There are no doubt going to be numerous recommendations in the interim report. The decline of the Secret Service could be traced to the agency being folded into the Department of Homeland Security.
Making the Secret Service an independent agency again might start the process of rebuilding the agency's tattered reputation.
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