Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe and Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) got into a yelling match Thursday during a congressional hearing about the July assassination attempt on President-elect Donald Trump.
When Fallon began asking Rowe — who was the Secret Service’s deputy director when Trump was shot July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania — questions about security failures that day, the two men remained relatively calm.
The exchange became heated when Fallon presented a photo of Rowe at the 9/11 remembrance in New York earlier this year and asked him if he was the special agent in charge of the president’s protective detail that day.
Rowe told Fallon that the special agent in charge in September was not in the photo. His voice rising, he said he “actually responded to Ground Zero” on Sept. 11, 2001 and “was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center.” He was at the 2024 remembrance, he said, to “show respect for our Secret Service members that died on 9/11.”
Fallon yelled at Rowe, “I’m not asking you that. I’m asking you if you were the special agent in charge.”
“Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes,” Rowe shouted back.
“Don’t try bullying me,” Fallon said, pointing his finger at Rowe as the two men began talking over each other. “I am elected member of Congress,” he said, “and I am asking you a serious question. … Were you the special agent in charge that day?”
Rowe said he wasn’t.
“You know why you were there,” Fallon said. “Because you wanted to be visible because you were auditioning for this job.”
Fallon said Rowe should have been on duty during the remembrance and because he wasn’t, he was effectively putting President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in danger.
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Fallon’s questioning time was up, but he said to Rowe, “You’re a bully.”
Rowe became the interim Secret Service director on July 24, one day after then-Director Kimberly Cheatle stepped down. She had been heavily criticized for her agency’s response to Trump’s assassination attempt.
In a comment to HuffPost, Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service chief of communications, said that all detail personnel were at the 9/11 memorial ceremony and “had complete access to their protectees during the memorial.”
Fallon’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.