‘What I saw made me ashamed’: Secret Service’s new head said he can’t defend leaving roof near Trump rally unsecured

Acting Secret Service DirectorRonald Rowe said he “cannot defend why that roof was not better secured” at the rally where the assassination attempt against Donald Trump occurred.

Rowe testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

He said he traveled to the site of the campaign rally — something his predecessor had not done.

“I laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. What I saw made me ashamed. As a career law enforcement officer, and a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured,” Rowe said in his opening statement to the joint Senate panel.

The shooting was a “failure on multiple levels.”

He acknowledged the many ongoing investigations into the shooting. “I pledge my full support to those inquiries…so that the American people have a full understanding of what happened, leading up to and during” the events of the July 13,” Rowe continued.

“This is a failure of the Secret Service,” Rowe later said plainly.

“That roof should’ve had better coverage and we will get to the bottom of whether there were any policy violations,” Rowe later said. “I could not, I will not, and I cannot understand why there was not better coverage or at least somebody looking at that roof line.”

Rowe became the acting director after Kimberly Cheatle stepped down last week. Lawmakers called for her resignation after she called the tragedy the “most significant operational failure” in decades in her testimony to the House.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire from a nearby rooftop into the Butler, Pennsylvania rally venue, killing one, striking Trump, and injuring two others. A Secret Service agent killed