In the wake of an explosive clash between acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, Thursday on Capitol Hill, Bernard Zapor, former special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that the Secret Service needs to get back to the "essence" of its protective mission.
A raucous shouting match between Rowe and Fallon broke out as the congressman questioned the director over security for President-elect Donald Trump at the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero earlier this year.
"Leadership and cultural repair can happen simultaneously, and the way that's done is you get to the purest essence of the mission," Zapor told Newsmax's "American Agenda" on Thursday. "In this case, there was a failure. You can attribute it all the way up to the secretary of Homeland Security. They have a very simple mandate: protect the homeland. The homeland is not protected when a former president [Trump] is treated like a presidential candidate, when there's known international and domestic threats active in the U.S. and abroad for his demise. And, secondly, you have a presidential candidate such as Robert [F.] Kennedy Jr., with the family history and the U.S. history, that was not afforded protection until much later, until there was actually public outcry.
"So, their mission is very simple," he continued. "You have to assume that attacks will happen at every venue, and that assassins are in the midst, and that this is going to take place. If you start your planning, your leadership and your performance measures based on that pureness, then it takes the noise away from all this, and it also eliminates the failure. If you have oversight and your performance is based on that alone."
When asked if Thursday's outburst marked the end of the road for Rowe, Zapor said it was "a horrific violation of our three branches of government."
"I mean, the purpose the founders had was that there would be a balance and that no one branch, particularly the executive, would exceed the legislative or the judicial and so you can't have this type of display," he said. "Accountability goes to the legislators in this case, and you have to go in there and demonstrate that there's fact-finding and resolve to have it. And again … the fact that ego is present in leadership for such a critical mission already just broadcasts a wide failure, so I would think so."
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