SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Mr. Rowe, we’ve heard that the shooter had a golf rangefinder. Was that not on the list of prohibited items at an event like this?
ROWE: Currently, it is not on the list of prohibitive items. But we’re going to make that change, Senator. COTTON: I just — John Kennedy can’t get into an LSU football game with a flask.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
COTTON: Well, he probably can, but he’s not supposed to. It just seems like common sense that you don’t need a laser rangefinder at an event like this. And it feels like a lot of that was just the lack of common sense being exercised. Are officers not empowered on the front line to use common sense to say, like, if a guy has a laser rangefinder, he should be detained, or at least stopped, and that’s why he’s carrying it around?
If you have a building like this that’s not secure from 150 meters away, someone, even the front line, lowest level, most junior officer should be able to kind of like send up the red flag immediately and say, like, we need to halt everything right now and figure out what the hell is going on. I mean, do officers not feel empowered to use that kind of common sense?
ROWE: I would hope they would, Senator. I can tell you from our uniformed division officers that run our magnetometer screening, they do a tremendous job. And even though something may or may not be on the prohibitive items list, they are well trained, and they do exercise that good common sense.
COTTON: And you want —
ROWE: I want them.
COTTON: — the support message. OK, I want every one of your officers all around the country to hear that their acting director wants them to exercise common sense.
It doesn’t have to be policy or protocol or procedure, they should exercise common sense. Thank you for that. So it was reported right before Ms. Cheatle’s hearing last week that, in fact, President Trump’s detail had requested more resources, and those had been denied.
She said that she did not deny those resources. You’ve testified this morning that you did not either. So who did? I mean, the Secret Service is not the post office. It’s not this vast bureaucracy. Like, I’m not surprised to hear that you knew the counter sniper. It’s a small agency, and you have a lot of career officers. Like, surely you’ve gotten to the bottom by now on whose desk this request landed and who denied it.
ROWE: … When it comes to a counter sniper or something like that, because I know that’s been the subject of some media reporting where they have requested counter snipers. We do have a finite number of counter snipers. And so what we try to do is if we cannot fill that asset, and that’s where we’ll say, hey, we can’t fill this assignment.
However, through the field office, they will use local law enforcement resources. And so in those situations, for example, in the one that has been the subject of a lot of reporting with Pickens, South Carolina, they, in fact, did use local assets to be able to do that. And there were three counter sniper teams.
They — one of them was formerly with the Secret Service Uniform Division. And so they actually used the same practices that we use. So it’s not that there was a drop in the capability. They actually used the best practices that we would use. So the asset may be denied by Secret Service between the war room and that conversation with the detail in the field, but that doesn’t equate to a vulnerability or a gap.
COTTON: OK. One final question about the Iran threat. As you know, Iran made credible threats against several former Trump administration officials, many of whom still have government provided security details to this day. Ms. Cheatle removed Secret Service protection from Robert O’Brien last year. Were you involved in that decision?
ROWE: So, Senator, he was a memorandum protectee, meaning that the president authorized protection for him. We do not weigh in on who gets protection.
COTTON: So you’re still protecting some others. I won’t reveal their names. You are still protecting others. And other personal security offices in the federal government are protecting others. Other officials don’t reveal their names. Like, who made the decision that Robert O’Brien no longer needed a security detail, despite Iran’s ongoing credible threats?
ROWE: So I can tell you, sir, it wasn’t the Secret Service. We don’t factor into that decision.
COTTON: And can you take a look at why that happened now that you’re in charge and consider the possibility that he might still need that protection, given all of his counterparts in the Trump administration still have protection?
COTTON: Despite all the resource constraints we’ve talked about today, he’s not the president of the United States. He doesn’t have an 18-car motorcade, nor do any of the others. I think he needs that protective detail. And now that you’re in charge, I’m asking you to take a new look at that and also