Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe during a Senate hearing Tuesday refused to pinpoint who denied requests by former President Donald Trump’s security detail over the last two years.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked Rowe about a July 20, 2024, Washington Post report that alleged that “top officials of the U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied requests for additional resources and personnel” sought by Trump’s detail in the past two years.
Rowe responded, “There are times when assets were unavailable and not able to be filled, and those gaps were staffed with state and local law enforcement tactical assets.”
Cruz asked Rowe who makes the decision at the Secret Service to deny those requests.
Rowe did not give a person’s name, but instead cited a “process.”
“The process is that a detail will make a request for either staffing, technical assets that is handled between the field office and the detail. It goes up to a logistics office between–,” he began.
Cruz interrupted, asking, “OK, so there’s a bureaucracy. Is there a decision maker?”
Rowe responded, “It’s not a bureaucracy, senator. It’s a process.”
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Cruz asked, “Give me the person that’s the decision maker. Is there one?”
Rowe again demurred, “Senator, it’s a conversation. It’s not just an absolute yay or nay.”
Cruz then asked if the same person who denied the request for additional security for Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was the same person who denied additional security to Trump. (According to government watchdog Judicial Watch, that person was Michael Plati, the assistant director of the Office of Protective Operations).
“I have a simple question, yes or no,” Cruz asked. “Did the same person deny the Trump request that also denied the RFK request? That’s a yes or no question.”
Rowe refused to answer.
“Senator, that is not a yes or no question. One, there is a process for our candidate nominee to receive protection,” he responded. “Mr. Kennedy submitted a request that was referred over to the CPAC,” he said, referring to the Candidate Protection Advisory Committee.
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Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Cruz retorted, “OK, you’re refusing to answer the question.”
The senator said he believed that Secret Service leadership made a political decision to deny Trump’s detail’s requests.
“I think the Biden administration has been suffused with partisan politics, that the same person who denied the request for additional security to President Trump also repeatedly denied the request for security to Robert F. Kennedy Jr, whose father was murdered by an assassin and whose uncle was murdered by an assassin, the same person made that decision,” Cruz said.
Cruz also requested Rowe provide every written request by the Trump campaign or Trump’s detail for additional resources and every response from the Secret Service.
Rowe said, “Senator, I will commit to providing responses and getting you the information that you were seeking.”
Earlier in the hearing, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) also asked Rowe who was in charge of denying requests from Trump’s detail.
“You’ve stated that on multiple occasions, President Trump’s team was denied [more] assets, who in the — who denies that? Who’s the person that denies that generally speaking?” Marshall asked.
Rowe told him, “There’s a process. Again, there’s a conversation had with the details –.”
Marshall then asked him, “Who is the person?”
Rowe responded, “It is a conversation between not only the detail, the field office –.”
Marshall asked again, “I want to know who makes the decision.”
Rowe told him, “The decision, sir, is it’s our process between the officer protective operations and the Office of Investigations.”
Marshall asked him, “Is there a title for this position?”
Rowe said, “It is called are we affectionately call it the war room and it’s where all of our logistics files into.”
Marshall asked, “So it’s a room that makes the decision?”
Rowe told him, “It is a staffing and assignments office.”
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