It’s being reported by Susan Crabtree at Real Clear Politics that sources inside the Secret Service are telling here they are incensed at the screaming match that occurred this morning between Acting Director Ron Rowe and Rep. Pat Fallon.
We posted the video of this but in case you missed it, here it is:
Crabtree is reporting that her sources say Rowe’s screaming was ‘pure deflection’ and it doesn’t really make sense as to why he moved the top agents “out of the protection line of duty”.
Also, while he claimed to have a gun and a radio, they say he wasn’t wearing an earpiece which meant he wasn’t on duty.
Here’s her full writeup from X:
Secret Service sources are incensed over this chaotic screaming match between Acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe and Rep. Pat Fallon.
They are telling me that they view Rowe’s angry repsonse as a pure deflection – Rowe is saying that he had a right to move the top agents assigned to protect Pres. Biden and VP Harris out of the protection line of duty because he worked either on or after 9/11 helping sift through the debris of the World Trade Center.
This makes absolutely no sense, these sources say.
While that work is honorable, and the nation owes him a debt of gratitude because it likely involved trying to find any survivors and body parts, I’m told hundreds of Secret Service agents were called in to do that work in the weeks after 9/11. That work involved going to what is called the FreshKills landfill — it was not at the World Trade Center itself.
I have several questions into the Secret Service press office to clarify exactly what 9/11 work Rowe was referring to and when it occurred.
Also, being assigned to work on or after 9/11 has nothing to do with why he chose to be in 9/11 the photo op and change protective protocol by moving the top protective agents farther away from Biden and Harris so he could be prominently seen.
Fallon rightly asked if he was jeopardizing Biden’s and Harris’s lives by doing so, and whether he had a gun or a radio on him.
During the screaming match, Rowe said he had a gun and a radio and claimed the protective mission wasn’t compromised.
Sources say it’s hard to tell if he had a gun on him during the 9/11 ceremony photograph that Fallon showed, but he’s not wearing an earpiece, and that means he was not in a protective posture and likely did not have radio on him.
And her follow-up…
The Secret Service spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi @SecretSvcSpox responds to my questions re: Acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe’s angry response to Rep. Pat Fallon’s questioning this morning over whether he broke USSS protocol and endangered Pres. Biden and VP Harris to place himself strategically in a 9/11 ceremony photo-op.
I asked the USSS to clarify on what work Rowe did on 9/11 and in its aftermath since he cited that work in response to Fallon’s question on why he had switched top protective agents out of sight and moved himself into a better position to be seen in the 9/11 photo-op.
“Acting Director Ronald Rowe volunteered to support the U.S. Secret Service’s official response efforts in New York following 9/11,” Gulgielmi said in a statement. “He was a part of the second response rotation, which occurred in mid-October 2001. As part of his duties, he worked to support recovery efforts at both Fresh Kills Landfill and Ground Zero. Acting Director Rowe joined the U.S. Secret Service in 1999 and was working as a shift agent assigned to protect a visiting foreign dignitary in Washington, D.C. on the day of the 9/11 attacks.
“In reference to your questions about the 9/11 memorial, all detail personnel were present and had complete access to their protectees during the memorial,” he added.
I have another follow-up question into the USSS on whether Rowe really had a gun and radio on him, as he claimed, during the 9/11 photo op.
My sources say they doubt that he did — because top officials aren’t usually operational during these types of ceremonies, and they didn’t see him wearing an ear-piece in the photo. That means he didn’t have a radio on him.
I’ll let you know if I get an answer on that last question.