Secret Service director touts changes as Congress presses him on Trump assassination attempt

Trump was wounded in the ear, one rallygoer was killed and two others were wounded.

The acting director of the Secret Service said Thursday that the agency is “reorganising and reimagining” its culture and how it operates following an assassination attempt against Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

Members of a bipartisan House task force investigating the attempt on Trump's life pushed Ronald Rowe on how the agency’s staffers could have missed such blatant security vulnerabilities leading up to the July 13 shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. At one point, the hearing devolved into a shouting match between Rowe and a Republican congressman.

Rowe promised accountability for what he called the agency’s “abject failure” to secure the rally in Butler, where a gunman opened fire from a nearby building. Trump was wounded in the ear, one rallygoer was killed and two others were wounded.

Another assassination attempt two months later contributed to the agency’s troubles. That gunman waited for hours for Trump to appear at his golf course in Florida, but a Secret Service agent thwarted the attack by spotting the firearm poking through bushes.

The task force has been investigating both attempts, but it was the July shooting that dominated Thursday’s hearing. Its inquiry is one of a series of investigations and reports that have faulted the agency for planning and communications failures. The agency’s previous director resigned, and the Secret Service increased protections for Trump before the Republican won the November election.

Rowe was repeatedly asked by flabbergasted lawmakers how problems so obvious in hindsight were allowed to happen.

Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, said it was “just wild to me” that at a time of tech advances, the Secret Service was using text messages and emails to communicate in real time about threats.