Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe on Tuesday confirmed an internal email reportedly sent from a counter sniper in the agency that blasted the organization’s top officials for an “inability to protect our leaders,” following former President Trump’s assassination attempt.
The email, first reported by RealClearPolitics, was sent Monday night to the Secret Service’s entire Uniformed Division, with the unidentified writer threatening to not stop speaking out until “5 high-level supervisors (1 down) are either fired or removed from their current positions.”
The “1 down” appears to reference former Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned last week after a dismal appearance before a House committee probing the July 13 shooting at a rally in Butler, Pa.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) brought up the “very telling” email during a joint Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee hearing.
“This agency needs to change and if not now, when? The next assassination in 30 days?” Blackburn said Tuesday, reading from the email which she alleged has been deleted.
The counter sniper, who said they have been with the Secret Service for more than 20 years, also said the agency “SHOULD expect another assassination attempt” before November as “we’ve exposed our inability to protect our leaders due to our leadership.”
Blackburn asked Rowe how he felt about those under him “worried about covering their behind and not worried about protecting a former president.”
He replied that he is "hurt by that email … because my people are hurting right now. We need them.”
Rowe, who took over at the Secret Service after Cheatle stepped down, said he didn’t know if the agency had deleted the email and that he would look into it.
The email writer also said that over the years he had conveyed to supervisors — including the current captain of the counter sniper team and those responsible for training the group — his concerns that the agency was falling short on its mission, “only to be brushed off as if those with less experience somehow knew more than me.”
The writer also lamented that they are no longer proud to be a Secret Service counter sniper.
“The team I was once proud to be a part of, is something I have to somehow hide as I move into my next career,” they said.
Rowe told Blackburn he was open to making changes based on feedback from within the agency.
“My agency is hurting. Emotions are raw. I actually want to hear more from that duty officer, that technician,” Rowe said. “I am committed to being a change agent, meaning I am committed to reviewing some of these things.”
