Thread by @susancrabtree

1/5🚨🚨 SEN. RON JOHNSON OFFERS INITIAL PRAISE FOR ACTING SECRET SERVICE DIR. ROWE, PROVIDES DETAILS ABOUT WHAT WAS DISCUSSED
.@SenRonJohnson calls his Rowe's morning briefing with senators "forthright," "confidence-building."

Just just got off the phone with Sen. Johnson, who said he was generally "impressed and encouraged" by acting Secret Service Dir. Rowe's briefing his morning.

"He was very forthright, definitely concerned about the morale of the men and women in the service, which I think we all need to be," Johnson told me. "They've got a big task ahead of them, but both he and the FBI Director were really, again, forthright is the best word I can say."

"As I said, this was a confidence-building briefing," Johnson said.

Johnson said he urged Rowe and a top FBI official present to provide more public information so "we don't allow conspiracy theories to spread."

"And I made the point [that] he way to do that is to be open and transparent, hold multiple briefings certainly start out by saying, this is incomplete, it's, preliminary.

"The public cuts you slack, but we need to know things as you know [them], and I think [he] definitely acknowledged that that's a good path to take."

"I think, if his higher ups will allow, I think that's exactly the direction he'd like to take."

2/2 🚨ACTNG SECRET SERVICE DIR. ROWE TELLS SENATORS COUNTER-SNIPER TOOK THE SHOT AS SOON AS HE COULD SEE CROOKS' HEAD, DID NOT WAIT FOR "COMMAND CENTER" PERMISSION.

Instead, a lip of the building was obscuring the shot, and Crooks took two first shots, then ducked beneath the lip, and then popped up for more shots, and that's when the Secret Service counter-sniper shot and killed him.

In my interview with Sen. Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican said he directly asked Secret Service Dir. Rowe if there was ANY delay in when the counter sniper had a shot on Crooks and when he took it because he had to radio back to a USSS command center to get permission.

Johnson told me: "According to him, that's false. ...They had him in sight once he stuck his head up to take the second round of shots.

...They should have told us a long time ago, but from my standpoint, that's the most important thing I learned from the briefing -- it was in response to my question.

More specifics in response to my follow-up question to break down exactly why the CS could not see Crooks:
So there is on [these metal roofs,] at the peak, there's a piece of metal up there. He didn't describe exactly, you know, how high. But when they had somebody [up there crawling then] crouch down, you could only just see the very crown of their head, so you couldn't see the rest of the body.

So, I mean, if you're a sniper, you're scanning things, you might see a dark spot, but not even recognize his head, I suppose... So he was not all that visible, but apparently, he came up above that metal partition, fired off two shots, sinked down below it, then came back up in the exact same location to fire the second round of shots when they took their shot.

So he wasn't in their sights for, you know, minutes, or, you know, even seconds. I mean, [as] soon as they got him in the sights, they basically took the shot. So again, I think that's news.

3/5 🚨🚨WHY DID THE SECRET SERVICE AGENTS NEAR THE STAGE NOT WHISK TRUMP AWAY WHEN LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENTS ALERTED THE COMMAND CENTER AND WERE LOOKING FOR CROOKS AND RALLYGOERS WERE POINTING TO HIM ON A ROOF?

Apparently, acting Secret Service Dir. Rowe has no good answer to that question from senators.

According to Sen. Johnson, Rowe told senators that Secret Service agents responsible for not ordering the president off the stage would be subject to "disciplinary action."

Johnson in an interview with me: The acting director, basically, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, [said] that basically he can't, he can't defend what happened.

I think they'll investigate, and [it's] entirely possible that people will be subjected to disciplinary measures. There's a pretty broad range of what that may be...you could tell he was emotionally concerned about it because he had just been to [Butler.]

I could not defend it.

He was highly concerned about the ongoing morale of the Secret Service after this. He's got, they've got enormous challenges ahead, and he needs the agents to have high morale, because they've got a lot of long hours ahead of them.

Again, I view that as a very good leadership quality. He's coming in as acting director. He recognizes that immediately as a concern of his agency. He needs to boost the morale of Secret Service agents. I would like to see that happen as well."

Photo of new Acting Secret Service Dir. Ron Rowe, below.

4/5 🚨🚨WHAT ABOUT REPORTS LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS LEFT THE ROOF WHERE SHOOTER CROOKS FIRED BC IT WAS HOT?

JOHNSON TO ME: I don't want to denigrate anybody at this point in time, okay?

But there's no doubt about it. I'm sure it's more comfortable in a second-story, air conditioned building than on the roof and not having been given direct orders or direction, 'No, you have to cover the roof."

Obviously, that was a massive failure, [along with] not not talking to this guy as soon as he was noticed was a massive failure. I mean, there's, there's just massive failures all along.. it's indefensible what happened?

Q: Did the Secret Service's security plan assign them to the rooftop or just inside - they are saying they were never assigned to the roof? Did they look their inside posts to go find Crooks when rally-goers started shouting?

Johnson: "So this was, this is a pretty short briefing. We had an hour. And even there, you know, you're still just scratching the surface. So there's a lot to be gleaned yet."

"The FBI has...like 700 agents on this [investigation.] They have obviously far greater capacity and capability in doing the investigation. I told them, I'm happy to back off and give you guys the ability to use your full investigation for completely transparent, [with] you keeping us totally up to speed."

5/5 JOHNSON ON SECRET SERVICE ACCOUNTABILITY:

(continued) from my interview with Sen. Johnson this afternoon after acting Secret Service Dir Rowe's briefing with senators.

Johnson acknowledged that a lot of details are still unclear about who was responsible for not putting the AGR building in the official perimeter and not assigning local law enforcement or Secret Service counter snipers to the AGR building roof.

Johnson said there are so many people responsible that all the questions will ultimately have to be answered.

"There are too many people involved here, too many people that want to justify their actions, but it'll take a little more time."

"What I think is also important is the acting Director immediately started taking all the actions he has to take. Again, he's protecting people today, and so I think it's actually pretty comforting that his primary focus, truthfully, until we started asking questions, was to let us know the actions he's taken immediately as acting director.

I think that's entirely appropriate. It was a confidence-building briefing, and that's that's good. And you know those answers to those specific questions, those will come.

Cheatle has already been held accountable. There's a lot of puzzle pieces to be filled in here. I just can't fill them in right now.

Johnson also stressed that "this is a failure at the top."

But said with acting Dir. Rowe now in charge, "I've had far greater confidence that we'll find out exactly what happened, and people will be held accountable."

"I would not have said that with Cheatle. "