Acting Secret Service Director Rowe’s Revelations: How a Lack of Unified Command Endangered Trump’s Life at Butler Rally

Xitter post from Susan Crabtree:

Most important news from Secret Service Dir. Rowe’s 1 p.m. address this afternoon to every Secret Service employee:

The Secret Service Butler rally that ended in an assassination attempt against Trump and the murder of rallygoer Corey Comperatore apparently DID NOT HAVE a UNIFIED COMMAND CENTER with local law enforcement.

Therefore, there was no interoperability between USSS and local law enforcement when communications came in. I have been asking this question of the Secret Service for weeks now. Finally, we have our answer.

They literally could not talk to each other that day. It was COMPLETELY SILOED – not just partially siloed with the command post serving as a way to make it interoperable and share communications.

Senator Ron Johnson and his team of staffers were the first to bring up the siloing of communications in his initial report released publicly on 7/21.

It appears as if unified command centers at rallies and events –(made up of Secret Service supervisors and their local law enforcement counterparts) before Butler were limited to National Special Security Events ONLY.

Those events are major federal govt or public events considered to be nationally significant and designated by the president and/or the Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary — in this case Mayorkas. They, therefore, did not include rallies and campaign events for Trump.

So obviously, the USSS and DHS, including Biden and Mayorkas, were using outmoded protocols for Trump events attracting tens of thousands of people.

This is beyond outrageous.

Rowe in his 1 p.m. address: “We’re going to put somebody in that command post, or we’re going to establish our security room in partnership with that unified command post. It’s the same model we use in National Special Security Events, so why would we use it on our daily operations?”

On interoperability communications with local law enforcement Rowe said this:

“It’s more than just trying to find the frequency of the local PD that we’re working with and diving into our radio network,” he said, noting that it will require investments. He said he’s already stood up a task force that will be co-chaired by a Secret Service supervisor in the protective division in partnership with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“We’re going to bring together FEMA, we’re going to bring together other operational elements of the department. We’re going to bring in state and locals. We’re going to get in a room, a small room and set them up to monitor communications with our counterpart.”

Fuller Rowe quote on the need for someone from local law enforcement and Secret Service in a UNIFIED COMMAND POST at all campaign events, not just presidential or vice presidential events or other NSSEs.

Acting Secret Service Dir. Rowe from his 1 p.m. all-hands remarks:

“We’re going to bring in state and locals. We’re gonna get in a room and figure this out, because gone are the days of putting an agent in some faraway room and some small broom/hall closet and with a box radio. We’re going to set them up with modern communications with a counterpart.”

(I was told that the Butler Secret Service “command post” likely consisted of a box radio and two or three guys — maybe even in parked car — that’s how loose these can be._

“We saw in Butler that that failed us. So I’ve given directions to all the SAICs in the field — we’re looking at security rooms and command posts. [If] state and local partner shave established a unified command post, we’re going to put someone in that command post, or we’re going to establish a security room in partnership with that [local] unified command post. It’s the same model we use for National Special Security Events, so why wouldn’t we use it on our daily operations?”