to pivot in terms of j.d. vance and what he says about kamala harris and how he pivots against the campaign against biden. >> is there anything you're watching for today that you'd like to hear from kamala harris? >> i was going to say, august is the month of the cat lady strike back. that's what we're going to be watching. she needs georgia. she has to bring them together. unite the party. turn people out. >> i think georgia is going to be an example of the new enthusiasm. a month ago shs the biden team thought georgia was slipping away. now very much back in play. >> plus atlanta is hot today. there's a big crowd. 15,000 people. >> that does it for us this morning. thank you for watching. we'll see you again here tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. eastern. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage right now. right now on msnbc reports, breaking news on capitol hill. the senate's first hearing into

the attempted assassination of donald trump about to begin. the new acting director of the secret service set to go before two committees. we'll bring you that hearing live. plus battle for the battle thegrounds. vice president harris heading to georgia for the first time as 2024 presidential candidate will get the latest on the harris veep stakes, including why the governor took himself out of the running. also ahead, republican reset of the gop's j.d. vance hopes to recalibrate his place in the race. it is 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart in. we begin with breaking news on capitol hill this morning. a joint senate hearing into the attempted assassination of donald trump is about to get underway. the new acting director of the secret service and the deputy

director of the fbi will be taking questions from senators on the judiciary and homeland security committees. it comes one day after the fbi revealed that the former president has agreed to sit for a victim interview as part of the investigation. julie joins us live from capitol hill. also with us is former secret service special agent, and former dhs spokesperson marsha espinosa. what can we expect from this hearing today? >> reporter: it will be very long. so expect to be glued to the tv screen as you watch this joint hearing for the first time the senate trying to get to the bottom questioning the deputy secret service director, who walked in a couple minutes ago. didn't take any questions from reporters. we did get a chance to talk to some senators who are on the homeland and judiciary committees. one of them is the top

republican on the judiciary panel, who just a couple minutes ago as we were walking into the hearing told us he hopes that ronald roe, unlike kimberly chooet the, is able to actually answer the questions rather than stone walling the panel, as we saw happen in the house two weeks ago. graham said in addition to getting to the bottom of what happened, how the security failure was aloud, how they were notified of the suspicious person by local law enforcement, including with a foe toe, and still allow the former president to take the stage at the rally knowing that individual might be close by. in addition, i thought it was interesting he wants to know whether the secret service has the proper resources they need to be a i believe to complete their jobs properly. he's talking about funding, staffing, all concrete things that only congress, who has the power of the pursestrings, is able to answer for. as we get ready for this hearing, those are some things that are top of mind, but we'll see what the fbi director and

what the secret service deputy director are able to say here. >> julie, some senators and some of their staff want to butler, pennsylvania, at the end of last week. what did lawmakers learn from that? >> reporter: that's exactly what we had just asked gary peters, the chair of the homeland security committee. also rand paul, their staff went to butler, pennsylvania, over the weekend. they were able to visit with local law enforcement agents, who are not at the same page on all of this as we have learned over the last couple weeks. i'm told by another senator who visited the cite independently a week ago they invited them to tour the area to see the site itself, including the sloped roof that's become such a focal point of this investigation. that was so close to where the podium was where trump was speaking, and a lot of details are still unknown, including what the staff were able to see. both gary peters and rand paul

told me that's exactly what they will be discussing in this hearing, pressing the secret service deputy trerkt and the fbi deputy director with their firsthand information of what they were able to see from visiting butler itself. >> this is the acting secret service director first chance to give lawmakers more information since kimberly stepped down. what are you looking to learn from rowe today? >> i think i'm looking at his approach. is he going to follow what kimberly did? i would say no because that did not work. her testimony drew a lot of criticism. there were a lot of requests she did not answer, so the perception is a lack of transparency or a lack of knowledge or incompetence. all those three discussions have been made. i would expect him to come in to have more information, and quite honestly, at the end, there's so much confusion about whether or

not somebody was supposed to be on that roof. really at this point, was somebody designated, did the secret service put somebody, did they say, no, it's okay. it's such a simple thing, but it's quite perplexing that somebody can't give clarity to a simple question. what happened with that rooftop. i would hope and presume at this point they really should know and have all the answers to the information. i can understand them saying we can't answer something if it, poses delicate information as far as national security or intelligence, but i don't think there's anything like that that's going to exist. >> when cheadle was in front of the committee, she wasn't able to answer basic can you give us the timeline of what happened when. what are some of the things that you would like to hear from rowe that we didn't hear from cheadle?

>> let's remember when director cheadle testified, the seam scene is still a crime scene and under investigation by the fbi. what that means is the fbi has lead and they control what information comes out. so it seems like at the time cheadle the was providing information that was agreed upon to be released publicly and she was trying to be a team player. ultimately, that didn't work. so today i'm glad to see both the director of the secret service and the deputy director of the fbi testify side by side so they can both answer those questions together. what we will be seeing today is director rowe learned from what cheadle the went through. he will be leaning forward. we have seen some excerpts of what he plans to say. he also visited the site in butler and laid on the roof in a prone position. he's expected to say he is ashamed by what happened. as a law enforcement professional for over 20 years,

he has no reasons why that roof went unmanned. so we'll be expecting him to lean forward in his testimony today and possibly provide a little bit more information. remember, this is still very much under investigation. the administration has put together an independent review panel or an independent investigation led by form dhs secretary janet napolitano and a bunch of law enforcement professional who is know the ins and outs of the law enforcement agency, know local law enforcement, so we'll the be look at when that panel comes out with their investigation, which is supposed to wrap up within 45 days. >> i want to bring in tom winter. good morning. what else have you learned about what we're expecting to hear today? >> good morning, jose. we do anticipate this will be an aviated testimony from ronald

rowe. they have brought a various posters and photographs that they have taken from the site of the shooting itself. our colleague and producer in the senate has seen them. so we are going to be able to see some of the photographs and actually get the exact vantage point that this shooter had at former president trump when this shoot og cured at that rally site. that will be a new visual today. we haven't really seen that. we'll see it kind of blown up in a way that you can understand exactly what he was looking at. i think to the point that was just made, rowe did visit the site after the crime scene was cleared. and then got on the roof, put himself in the same position as crooks and we'll note in his prepared remarks and expected testimony today the quote is ashamed. he's ashamed of the what a clear shot this individual had at trump. so that's going to be a question in a bit of a testimony that we're going to get to. as far as granular detail, i expect the acting secret service

director to touch on the fact that we have a very active campaign. they have protective detail on the vice presidential candidate for the republican party. so they are going to be protecting not only him, but his family. that's just standard practice once the republican convention is over. so you've got that detail, the trump detail, the harris detail, which she would have had any way as the vice president, and now the presidential presumed or de facto nominee rather for the democratic party. then you still have president biden in his detail in the family's members off all those details. this is really complex. this is something that the secret service in a good year is really challenged with from a resources standpoint. i think he's going to touch on the fact that they are evaluating how things go from here with respect to these various rallies. it will be interesting to see if the question comes up, and if i was a member of the senate and asking questions, i would

certainly get into the fact whether we're going to see outdoor the rallies going on from here on out or if they are going to be reevaluated given the tremendous all the of threats that the candidates from both parties continue to receive. >> take us back to when cheadle was speaking in front of the congressional committee. you and i were together along with evy and others. i think how little information cheadle was willing to divulge, but also the manner she was unwilling to speak about anything. >> right. it's been 17 days exactly from this shooting. so this point, rowe should have absolute command on the timeline. we know from the deputy who was part of the briefing with reporters yesterday, the fbi has, in their view and based on their evidence and the interviews they have conducted, developed a comprehensive timeline of what they believe crooks was up to that day.

that's one component of this investigation. the other component of this is going to be from the secret service, what was crooks up to, what were we doing at that time, what was local law enforcement doing at that time, and then another question i would ask if i was a senator and at this is what was the communication like? you guys are supposed to be in the same command post. you have local law enforcement, along with the the secret service. what was being relayed to each party, who was talking to who, because it's not a state secret here that the secret service runs an encrypted radio network that nobody should be able the to listen to. so there has to be some sort of a bridging of that gap, if you will. it's not about whether the technology is there, it's an issue of they have their own communications network. so what was being done to communicate. we're looking at a guy who is acting awfully suspicious from another interview may have parked near law enforcement. that would be a red flag to me.

some indications they wanted to check out his car and would have found improvised imploexives. so what was this dialogue looking like and at what point did one party inform the other, and should there have been a point that trump was pulmoed off the stang or trump was allowed to go on the stage at all and say let's find this guy. what's five minutes in the grand scheme of things, and then go from there. >> those are some of the issues that seem basic to those of us that aren't in the day-to-day existence of the secret service or of even local law officials that were at the scene. what are your questions that tom is talking about the communications. it seems as though where it occurred in a short period of time, but that suspect had been seen for some time. >> one of the red flags is when he was spotted by local law enforcement and the lag and time

before the secret service knew. so to what tom said, you're supposed to have security room or command post where representative from every law enforcement agency is there and you sit there in this joint way where you can pass information. one of the thing wes could hear, and i don't know if it will be revealed here, maybe because butler had a small police force. there was about 12 is what we're, which is very low. maybe they didn't delegate somebody to the command post. maybe there was supposed to be some alternate way of communicating. i don't know that. if thatment comes out t will be very telling about why the communication breakdown happened. so ideally in a perfect world, you do want these things. the fbi does their investigation on the assassination attempt. they are looking at crooks. they are looking at how he set up. they are looking at his background. that's what they are looking at. at this point, the u.s. secret service should be able to say with clarity, this is what happened on our end. this is what we saw.

>> evy, let me interrupt you. let's go right into the acting director of the secret service and his testimony. >> thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. a critical parol of the secret service mission is protecting the nation's current and former government leaders. the attempted assassination of former president trump on saturday, july 13th, 2024, in butler, pennsylvania, was a failure on multiple levels. i join you and all americans in condemning the horrific assault on former president trump,. and i extend my deepest sympathies to the families and my sincere wishes for continued recovery. before i begin, i want to commend the heroic actions of the men and women of the secret service on july 13th.

our special agents shielded the form president with their bodies while shots were still being fired. selflessly, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice without hesitation. i'm extremely proud of these actions, and those taken by the countersniper team to neutralize the threat that prevented further loss of life. i applaud the actions of our tactical teams that responded to quickly. i would like to express my gratitude to our federal, state, and local partners. we rely on these critical relationships, which have developed over decades of daily collaboration to secure protected events and conduct criminal investigations. as you're aware, there are multiple ongoing investigations of the attack and the security failures that occurred that day. i pledge my full support to those inquiries so the secret service, your committees and the american people have a thorough and complete understanding of what happened leading up to and during july 13th.

i will not wait for the results to assess where we failed that day. i have taken and will continue to take immediate steps to ensure we do not repeat those failures. since my appointment as the acting director one week ago, i identified gaps in our security on july 13th and have implemented corrective actions. one of my first actions as acting director was traveling to the butler farm show site to better understand how our protection failed. i went to the roof of the agr building, where the assailant fired shots, and i laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. what i saw made me ashamed. as a career law enforcement officer, a 25-year veteran with the secret service, i cannot defend why that roof was not better secured. to prevent similar lapses from

occurring in the future, i directed our personnel to ensure every event site security plan is thoroughly vetted by multiple experienced supervisors before it is implemented. it is clear to many that other protective enhancements could have strengthened our security at the butler event. as such, i have directed the expanded use of unmanned aerial systems at protective sites to detect threats on roofs and other elevated threats. i have also directed resources to facilitate our protected site communications, particularly, our commuications with state and localer ins partners. i have instructed protective details to be approved expeditiously and have ordered the maximum use of requested personnel at protective sites to address this heightened security environment. i have heard your calls for accountable thety. i take them very serious plip

. the secret service office of professional responsibility is reviewing the actions and decision making of secret service personnel in the lead up to and on the day of the attack. if this investigation reveals that secret service employes violated agency protocols, those employees will be held accountable to our disciplinary process. with respect to congressional investigations and requests for information, i instructed my staff to provide full cooperation and respond expeditiously on a continuing basis to ensure you have the information you need to conduct your critical oversight. in my testimony before you today, i will provide details on the secret service's advanced security planning for the butler farm show site, facts as we know them regarding the incident itself, known breakdowns in executing the security plan, and corrective actions that the agency is taking to ensure that nothing like this happens again.

but do not believe that inadequate time to plan for this events was a factor in the failure. as you saw in my written statement, i'm prepared to provide a plan for the attack, however, i'd like to point out that based on what i know right now, neither the secret service countersniper teams nor members of the former president's security detail had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the agr building with a firearm. it is my understanding those personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots. prior to that, they were operate ing with the knowledge that local law enforcement was working an issue of a suspicious individual prior to the shots being fired. i regret that information was not passed to congress in the public sooner with greater frequency, and i fear this lack of information has given rise to false conspiracy theories about

what took place that day, and i want to debunk these theories. let me address one conspiracy directly. the secret service countersniper neutralized the assailant within seconds after the assailant fired his weapon. he had full discretion to use deadly force and did not need to seek authorization to fire. i am immensely proud of the selfless dedication of our employees to the mission. every day the men and women answer the call to protect our nation's leaders, and the standard is no fail for a reason. during our current high operational tempo, i want and i need to ensure that the secret service workforce are uplifted so they can focus on carrying out the mission. they have my full support, and i'm confident in their abilities to ensure the safety and security of the people we protect.

they are worthy of trust and confidence, and they deserve your support as well as the support of the american people. chairman peters, chairman durbin, ranking member paul, ranking member graham, members of the committees, thank you for the opportunity to testify at this joint hearing. i will submit the remainder of my statement for the record, and i will answer your questions. >> thank you, mr. rowe. our second witness is paul the abate, the deputy director of the federal bureau of investigation at the department of justice. in this role, deputy director overseas all fbi domestic investigative and intelligence activities. prior to his appointment as deputy director, he's had a distinguished three decades within the fbi leading counterterrorism efforts, and most recently, as the associate deputy director of the fbi for his responsible for the management of all fbi personnel, budget, administration, as well

as infrastructure. thank you for appearing before the committee here today. you are recognized for your opening remarks. >> thank you, sir. good morning, chairman peters and durbin, ranking members paul and graham, and distinguished members of the committee, it's a privilege to appear before you today to discuss the fbi's investigation of the attempted assassination of former president trump on july 13th in butler, pennsylvania before going further, i want to again offer my and our condolences to the victims of this heinous attack. to the family the and loved ones of heroic firefighter, to mr. dutch, who continue to recover, and to former president trump who are is also struck by a bullet fired from the shooter's rifle. our thoughts and prayers are with each of them and their families and loved ones. within minutes of the attack, the field office in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, received

notification of the assassination attempt and responded to the scene immediately with a surge of resources quickly moing forward on the investigation. from the outset, the fbi has been investigating this attack as an assassination attempt and ab act of domestic terrorism part our team continues to conduct a full, thorough and objective investigation, and we'll continue to follow all leads and avenues of investigation to logical conclusion leaving no stone unturned. while it's not typical to provide details of an ongoing investigation, this, as we all know, is an extraordinarily tragic set of circumstances of the ult most national importance making it essential to inform the american public and congress what is known right now with full transparency. the investigation remains focused, of course, on determining motive, identifying any potential coconspirators or others with knowledge of the

attack, and building out a timeline of the shooter's actions in advance of and during the attack. thus far, though absolutely nothing has been ruled out, the investigation has not identified a motive nor any coconspirators or others with advanced knowledge. the team conducted more than 460 interviews, executed search warrants, including at the shooter's residence, and seized electronic media to include phones, laptops, hard drives and thumb drives. legal process has been issued to dozens of companies, and we received more than 2,000 tips from the public. the full resources of the fbi have been brought to bear in furtherance of the investigation. professional staff, experts, i have personally visited the site of this horrific attack and seen firsthand the work of fbi pittsburgh and our partners on the frontline and want to thank all involved for their tireless efforts to get the answers that we need and to deliver justice.

specialized resources deployed including evidence response teams, victim services specialists, laboratory and operational division resources to process physical and digital evidence, a shooter reconstruction team, our explosive experts have analyzed the three ied recovered, two from the shooter's family, one from the family residence, and our behavioral analysis unit is helping to build a profile of the shooter to include his mental state. next, i want to provide a brief highlighted overview of the timeline that has been established to date through witness interviewed and other other information. this is our understanding at present and is subject to change and further refinement as more facts are collected. on july 3rd, the rally in butler, pennsylvania, was announced. july 6th, the shooter registered to attend the rally and performed a search for, how far was oswald from kennedy.

the shooter traveled to the butler farm show grounds and remined there for 20 minutes. we assessed this shows advanced planning and recognizance on his part. july 12th the shooter traveled to the sportsman club where he practiced shooting. on the morning of july 13th at 10:00 a.m., the shooter returned to the farm the show grounds to remain there for 70 minutes before returning home again. at approximately 1:30 p.m. the while at the residence, the shooter's father gave him a rifle for the purpose he believed of going back to the sportsman club. about 25 minutes later, the shooter purchased ammunition while enroute to the butler farm show grounds. the subject then arrived at the scene was moving around the farm show grounds close to the american glass research building from which he committed the attack. shortly thereafter, approximately 3:51 p.m., the shooter flew a drone approximately 200 yards from the farm show grounds for about 11

minutes. the drone was found in the subject's car. analysis has not revealed any photos or video taken by the drone, but we can confirm he was live streaming at the time and would have been able the to view it on his controller. the first reported siting by local law enforcement was at approximately 4:26 p.m. at approximately 5:10 p.m., the shooter was identified by local law enforcement as a suspicious person around the agr building. and approximately 5:14 p.m., a local s.w.a.t. operation took the photo of the shooter. at about 5:32 p.m., local s.w.a.t. observed the shooter using his phone, browsing news sites, and with a range finder. at approximately 5:38 p.m., the photo of the shooter taken earlier was sent to local s.w.a.t. operators in a text

message subsequently, the u.s. secret service command post was notified of a suspicious person. officers lost sight of the subject from approximately 6:02 p.m. the to 6:08 p.m. but continued to communicate with each other in an attempt to locate him. recently discovered video from a local business shows the shooter pulling himself up on to the building rooftop at approximately 6:06 p.m. approximately 6:08 p.m., the subject was observed on the roof by local law enforcement. at approximately 6:11 p.m., local police officers was lifted to the roof by another officer, saw the shooter and radioed that he was armed with a long gun. within approximately the next 30 seconds, the shots were fired. the evidence recovery team found eight shell casings at the scene next to the shooter's body.

we believe he fired eight rounds. while the investigation is not determine motive, the investigative team continues to review information from legal returns, including online and social media accounts. something just very recently uncovered that i want to share is a social media account, which is believed to be associated with the shooter in about the 2019, 2020 timeframe. there were over 700 comments posted from this account. some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-semitic and antiimmigration themes tos a pouz political violence and described as extreme in nature. while the investigative team is still working to verify this account to determine if it did, in fact, belong to the shooter, we believe it important to share and noted today particularly given the general absence of other information to date from social media and other sources of information that reflect on

the shooter's potential motive in mind set. these are the factings, in part, that the investigation has revealed to date while the shooter is dead, our work is very much ongoing and urgent. thank you, and i look forward to answering any and all questions. >> thank you. we'll now proceed, chairman durbin will ask the first two questions. i will then ask a question. ranking member paul, and after that we will alternate between members of the judiciary and members of the homeland security committee, recognized by me. with that, senator durbin, you're recognized for your questions. >> thank you, senator peters. you'll understand why when i say in 20 days, we're going to start the democratic national convention in chicago. i have been briefed by the law enforcement agencies plans for security for that event. tens of thousands of people will be there, including some of the

highest ranking politicians in the united states. i trust that both of your agencies can hans in the affirmative if i act whether you're actively engaged and working with the development of security plan taking into consideration lessons of july 13th. >> senator, that is 100% yes from the secret service. >> yes from the fbi as well. we have been working on this for well over a year in preparation. >> i'm not going to ask for details for obvious reasons, but i do want to ask a question about the secret service staffing. congress has nearly doubled the budget for the secret service over the last ten years. from $1.8 billion in 2014 to $3 billion in fiscal year 2024. despite this large increase in funding, the number of agents in protective operations has fallen from 4,027 to 3,671 during that same time period. approximate 9% reduction. acting director rowe, what

accounts for protective operations losing 356 agents over the past ten years? >> so senator, with respect to where we are today on staffing, and then i'll address the ten year where we were. in this year alone, we are going to end the year on the positive of 200 plus agents. that's the first time in a number of years that we have been able to do that. part of that was gaining some efficiencies in our hiring process. but what i want to reemphasize is we have not dropped standards. only 2% of every applicant actually makes it through the hiring process. we are filling our classes at the federal law enforcement training center. we are doing this ramp up as part of what lies ahead of us with the l.a. olympics in 2028.

with respect to what has happened in years prior, this is a difficult and challenging job being a secret service agent. living your life by somebody else's schedule. constantly away from your family, constantly having to meet increased operational and investigative demands, which we gladly do, but it's not for everyone and i think there are times where people have to make tough choices, and they decide to leave the agency. but that doesn't mean that they were any less of an agent or weren't committed to the mission. because we are all committed to being patriots and serving our country and protecting our nation's highest leaders. i think there was a variety of factors, some of it was the pandemic. some of it was the economy, other opportunities. we have people that are very skilled in cyber that often leave the job. some of the protective skills they acquire are also in demand in the private sector. but some of the mechanisms that we put in place just in the last year is also retaining our workforce.

that's what we are focused on right now. >> the government accountability office determined that restaffing from these losses have been slow due to a number of factors, including the years long background checks for prospective agents and the assignments agent is must work through before being assigned to protection. given these constraints, what steps have you taken to improve recruitment? >> we're actually putting out targeted recruitment opportunities. so we have just recently put it out for within our uniform division for our countersniper unit, our medical emergency response unit, our counterassault team on the special agent side. so we're actually trying to gather the best and the brightest. i will tell you we're having great success with a lot of these vacancies. but what i want to reiterate is that on the counterassault

vacancy, we had 700 applicants that applied for this. really what we will glean after they make it through the process, and they have to be able to hold a top secret clearance, if we realize 15 out of that tranche, that's a 2% pass rate. so it's very competitive. and we are trying to make sure that we are getting the best and the brightest without dropping standards. >> one last question for either one of you. what's the purpose of a range finder? and once this assassin was identified as using a range finder, wasn't that proof he was a dangerous individual? >> i'll say that obviously somebody is trying to determine where they are in proximity to a location, a fixed location. i'll defer to my colleague here, but i believe it was a recreation or sports-related.

i thought i read it was a golf range finder. nonetheless, it still would have provided him the ability to provide the distance that he was away from his intended target. >> wasn't that enough? >> as far as raising suspicion? >> yes. >> i think he was identified as being suspicious by local law enforcement. >> and nothing happened? >> well, i know local law enforcement was attempting to locate him. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> ranking member graham? >> thank you. let's go back to the resources. do you need more money? >> senator, there's not a single agency in the executive branch that could needs more money. everyone would take more resources. we have had a great relationship with the department of homeland security. >> do you feel constrained to

ask for more resources by anybody? >> no, sir, we don't. and actually, we have a great relationship with our appropriators and, obviously, the authorizing committees, and they have always looked out for the secret service. >> so i would encourage you to think big when it comes to resourcing the department in light of what happened here. at the time of the shooting, the iranians were threatening high level american officials including president trump, right? >> senator, it's widely known -- >> yes, senator. >> did that factor into the security footprint? >> senator, what i will say is that it is widely known that the iranians to not like us. i would. >> dst not they don't like us. they threatened to kill certain people and they named them.

>> it's not like i hate america. i'm going to kill these guys. >> i can't publicly comment on it. >> what i'm trying to say is i cannot publicly comment on what intelligence, but i can assure you we do a threat-based protective model. >> i'd like to have that model. provided to the committee. could you do that? >> yes, sir. >> could you also give us the protocols that are in place to secure sites like these? >> yes, sir. >> thank you. one, the protective detail around president trump, they are brave men and women. these questions are not to belittle anybody. they are trying to figure out how the system failed to badly. you say not reluctant to ask for more money. what do we need to make it easier to hire people without lowering our standards? i know it's a hard job. can we do anything to help you?

>> i think we're willing to take that back. we're working on our time to hire. >> if it you had more people, you'd have more time off. >> that's true, sir. >> let's get more people and more time off. these are tough jobs. people in this committee know. i don't know how they hold a family together doing what they are doing. it's the miitary really on steroids. the encrypted app. can you tell us about these apps? have they been broken into, the guy had some apps that were encrypted? >> i think we have experienced a range of returns on this. some of the applications that he was using online were encrypted in nature. some of the e-mails -- >> have we broken into them? >> we received returns that are some that we have not been a able to get information back because of their encrypted nature. >> is there any way to solve that problem? >> senator, we have talked about this before. we need a solution that provides

lawful access to law enforcement -- >> you're telling me the guy that took eight shots at the president, former president, has apps that we can't get into that may -- if you could get into, reveal some relevant information. >> that is correct, senator. >> so if we were talking to some foreign power, i don't think any foreign power would hire this guy so i'm not overly worried this was some great plot by the iranians because they couldn't even think of this, however, there could come a day where something like this is very important. how do we solve this problem? >> senator, as we have been saying, we need a solution that provides lawful access where when we go -- >> you're telling me -- i agree with you. we can't get into all these days after, that needs to be fixed. i'm all for privacy, but to a

point. what if in the future somebody is using these apps to communicate with a foreign power? i think we need to know these things and know them in realtime. so lessons learned is that everything failed. corrective action seems you need more money and more people. accountability, at the end of the day, how many people do you think will be relieved of their duties because of this? >> senator, i publicly cannot weigh in on that right now. it has to be a fair and neutral process. >> from a fair point of view, would you say this is a major system failure at every turn and those in charge of the system in question not only was it embarrassing, they failed? >> so senator, again, if there were policy violations, those individuals will be held accountable and they will be

subject to penalties. they will be held to our table of penalties, which will include up to termination. >> thank you. >> director rowe, in your testimony here today as well as in your written testimony, you said very clearly that you can't defend why that building with the shooter on top of it was not better covered. you were very clear. you cannot defend that. my question to you is, my understanding is there's a detailed site survey that is done prior to an event to identify potential threat points. talk to me about that site survey. i'm sure you have had a chance to look at it now after action, and how did that site survey get approved when it was so clear that that was a major threat from that building? >> thank you, senator. our pittsburgh field office did the advance. during that advance, not only

were they discussing amongst themselves about mitigating the line of sight, but also they were discussing with other agencies that were supporting it. our countersnipers met with their counterparts. the team lead met. they walked the site. they identified the agr building. and if i may, if i could point out something right now, we will place this for the record, but this is the point of view -- this is from the second floor of theagr building. this point of view is the point of view where the countersniper team locally was posted. the gold arrow indicates where the shooter fired from. looking left, why was the

assailant not seen? when we were told that building was going to be covered, that there had been a face to face that afternoon, that our team leads met. this was the view. let me show you another view, senator. this view is a reenactment by one of my agents. laying flat. there was a five-inch rise in the middle of that roof. the assailant would have had to present his bore over that to get his shot off. the view underneath reflects the perspective that he would have had. again, i call your attention

back to the first exhibit, if they had looked left. give me c. this is what our countersniper team saw. shooter, no elbows, you barely make out the crown of his head. below it, the assailant up prone, and let me tell you, our countersniper, this individual i know him. i consider him a friend. he has covered me operationally in conflict zones. when i did my time on the president's detail, he exemplifies the courage, the skill, and the ability to respond under great stress in such short time to neutralize a

threat and prevent further loss love life. getting back to your question, senator, these were discussions that were had between the pittsburgh field office, the local counterparts and everyone supporting that visit that day. that's why when i laid in that position, i could not, and i will not, and i cannot understand why there was not better coverage or at least somebody looking at that roof line when that's where they were posted. >> director rowe, the secret service, state and local law enforcement were on multiple communication channels, is my understanding. as a result, local law enforcement was only able to call into a state command center that was in relay from the secret service. this seemed to be a recurring issue in emergency situations that we're finding with government that there's not a seamless way to communicate, particularly if you're relying on local law enforcement to deal

with what was clearly a major vulnerability. local law enforcement in butler told my staff that they had no way of communicating directly with the secret service. if i listen to you saying there was 30 seconds between when local law enforcement reported that there was a man on the roof with a gun, 30 seconds, if it's communicated to a sniper team, would that be enough time to react prior to the firing of those shots? >> senator, if we had that information, they would have been able to address it more quickly. it appears that that information was stuck or siloed in that state and local channel. i will tell you there were our tactical elements did not only have embeds with them, but they also had radios on the tactical net. it is troubling to me that wit did not get that information as quickly as we should have.

we didn't know that there was this incident going on. the only thing we had was that locals were working an issue at the 3:00, which would have been the former president's right-hand side, which is where the shot came. nothing about man on the roof, nothing about man with a gun, none of that information ever made it over our net. >> so that will change? >> yes, sir, we are working right now to figure out the interopt prablt prabl to make sure we have access through those channels. >> ranking member paul, you're recognized for your questions. >> director rowe, i'm encouraged by your attitude and what you brought here today, what you have talked about as far as the immediate changes and i hope you'll follow through with that. i'm encouraged by the fact that you acknowledge it's indefensible that the roof was unattended. would you say the roof being unattended breaches standard protocol? >> that roof should have had

better coverage. we will get to the bottom of if there were any poll violations. >> i would think along with i can't imagine how indefensible would not be breaching protocol. what i would caution, though, is that i sense -- is and you're the secret service and these people are your friends and heroic people that do good things, that we can't let our friendships blind us from responsibility. so someone is in charge of the secret a at the zone. would the secret service be in charge of the entire operation and work with law enforcement, with us they are in charge of c entire operation, and that's the secret service not the local police. >> you are correct, sir. this is a failure of the secret service. >> that's what i mean. i don't wish anybody harm. i appreciate the bravery of the capitol hill police, and i was

at the shooting at the ball field and i have heard 100 shots coming our way, and fortunately none came to me, but i appreciate the bravery of all the people who protect us. there's also the idea that there are certain mistakes that don't make you a bad person, but they are inexcusable if you made that mistake. for example, let's say you determine the local police should have been on there and they told us, and the local police say they didn't tell us to do it, and it's a he said-she said. and somebody has to be on the roof. the local police, i told you to get on the roof. get on the roof. and ultimately the buck doesn't pass along to somebody, and whoever is in charge is in charge. i know the process has to be kneaded out, and the process has to protect the next trump rally. whoever is in charge of butler

is not in charge of the rally at las vegas. that's what you should say, the leadership from that event is going through a process, and until that process they won't be in charge of the democratic national convention, and that would ensure a lot of people they won't be in charge of security until it's determined. can you tell us something to that accord? >> the team planning the democratic national convention, that team has been on the ground and that's from d.c. with support from the chicago field office. i just want to reiterate, our pittsburgh field office staff, they are wearing this harder than anybody right now in the secret service. they feel completely demoralized. what i am trying to do is also let them know that, listen, they need to be focused on the mission at hand. i also have to walk a tightrope here and make sure i am not

tainting any future from discipline action -- >> i understand, and i have great respect for all of the officers, and we have 90 minutes of a suspicious person. senator durbin mentioned the range finder. those things are enough to shoot a suspicious person, but you would think it would be enough to stop the proceedings and that's when you get to the second major management or judgment error of this. trump has done probably 100 rallies like this. how often at one of his rallies is there 90 minutes of looking at one person and at least a half dozen pictures of that person, and is it protocol to led a proceeding going on, and 90 minutes worth of people talking about this person and nobody stops the proceeding,

does that defy the protocol? >> well, there was 90 minutes when he was identified by local law enforcement and we had a 30-minute window, and at no time was there any communication -- >> you shoot people with a weapon. without a weapon, we are talking about people you stop and say, he had a backpack, and in all likelihood that has the weapon in it, and the person with a backpack would never get to the parameter, and the mistake was having a parameter wide enough to never have somebody shooting from outside the parameter, right? people with big backpacks are very suspicious, and you have 20 or 30 minutes of knowing about it, and the thing is, there's all kinds of chatter going on about this and you would think the chatter going on with the local police is on a police radio, and a policeman with the

radio is standing in the control tent so you get that communication. there's a huge massive breakdown. how often has this happened at other rallies where there's half a dozen pictures and 90 minutes of people talking about a suspicious person. i can't imagine it's real common. >> sir, at rallies there are people that come to the attention of law enforcement for a variety of reasons. if they come to our attention for some other activity that might, you know, put it a little -- hey, we probably need to go check that individual out, this happens and that's why we attempt to locate them and that's why it's important to try and find them and to have the information. local law enforcement did their level best to try and locate them. they did provide us the photos 30 minutes prior, and he evaded any protection by law enforcement. >> once again, it's the overall person in charge. it's a terrible breakdown and

management decision not to stop it. there was a chance to stop the proceeding. the question is not whether there's enough information to take down an individual, and it's a lower standard to say we will wait until we get this individual, the roof and the 90 minutes of it, both, i think are a failure of your protocol, and when that's determined a person that made these decisions can't be in a position of authority again. >> senator klobuchar. >> thank you very much, and thank you for holding this hearing. i appreciate it, when we had the classified hearing and also today, and in your own personal emotion and reaction to your visit and what had gone wrong. for the people in my state that keep asking me, i just don't get how he got on the roof, and i know we have gone through great detail and examination, and can you give us a minute on what went wrong and how you think it

can be fixed? i think it will help dispel the conspiracy theories, and there's people that think it didn't happen, which is ridiculous because it did, and there are people thinking all kinds of conspiracies went on within the government, which is also false. can you tell them what went wrong so they understand. >> yes. thank you, senator. i thought long and hard about this. i think this was a failure of imagination. a failure to imagine that we do live in a dangerous world where people do want to do harm to our protectees. i think it was a failure to challenge our own assumptions, the assumptions that our partners are going to do everything they can, and we didn't challenge our assumptions where we assume somebody is going to cover that, and we assume there's going to be

uniformed presence. we didn't challenge that internally during that advance. moving forward i have directed that when we are talking to people and making requests, we are very specific about what we want. we are providing explicit instructions on exactly what our expectation is and what we need them to do and what we want them to do. that's the only way that we are going to be able to move forward beyond this. let me just tell you that our state and local law enforcement partners are the best, so this -- this belief that somehow they are less than federal law enforcement, or they are less than the secret service, they are out there patrolling communities every day. they are the ones out there going into hazardous conditions every day. they know their communities. they have the ability to enforce state and local laws. our advance agents do not. >> right. >> we need them and we need them to be partners with us, and i

think we need to be very clear to them and that may have contributed to this situation. >> yeah. appreciate that. i have the same respect. next. one of the things you mentioned to me was -- and to all of us, was in this other briefing, was just the texting protocol. i think a lot of us think about this in nonsecurity settings about how people are texting all the time instead of talking and how it takes their eyes off, in your case, the target. could you talk about what might have gone wrong there and how you think things could change when there's the hope that their eyes are constantly on the scene and on the potential targets and risks? >> thank you, senator. so, again, we need people focused on the problem or on their area of responsibility. it was great that there was a text chain, but that

communication needs to go over the net, it needs to go over a radio channel so that everyone has situational awareness of it. what i was -- the point i was making in the closed door briefing is that we have to get to a point now where we are using our radio systems to have that collective awareness of this. i think, you know, one of the things that i have directed is that in addition to the inoperability, we are going to roll out common operating picture or platform that we utilize for national security events. we have the ability to roll that out to the field that has a blue force tracker in it, and it's table to put where all of your state and local assets are, and where our federal assets are. in addition to that, i want people using the radio, so it's great that the tactical elements are talking to each other. it's great that the shift is talking toh