MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you both for- for sitting here with us and for doing so in a bipartisan manner. The Secret Service did a pretty self-critical review of what went wrong on July 13 with that near miss on Donald Trump’s life. They said a lack of diligence, communications gaps were responsible here. They took the blame, the director resigned. What more did you find that they didn’t already fall on their swords for?
REP. KELLY: Well, I guess I could start off because this is my hometown, right? And I thought from the very beginning, it probably wasn’t the right size venue, because of- when the president had come to Butler before, he- about 50,000 people showed up. The venue we went to would really hold- they would hold a lot of people, but it’s a very difficult venue to get in and get out of. I was more concerned with traffic, and how do I get tied up–
MARGARET BRENNAN: You thought that before?
REP. KELLY: Yeah, when I- when they- when they first said they were coming to Butler, I thought they were going to come to the same place, and they said, no, they were going someplace different. So when you look at that, so to the- in the very start of it, and I didn’t realize at the time, but once the campaign team makes a selection, they hand the keys over to Secret Service. And I think looking back on it, Secret Service would have been better at that point to say, you know what, we know you want to be in that town, but there’s probably better places for you to be. This is going to be hard for us to secure. And as it turned out- I never imagined, by the way, that it was- the event that took place that day was going to take place, I just thought that Secret Service should have taken more command of it, especially when they’re so strained. They- they’re- during an election period, there’s so many protectees out there, and it kind of marginalizes what they can do and where they can be. So I think the site was a difficult site to secure. On July 13, it was impossible. When they came back on October 5, it was the difference between day and night. They really locked it down, and they did a lot of things they probably should have done in the beginning, but it’s always- hindsight’s always 20/20. So I think what we- we heard from the very beginning the Secret Service, ‘this is the worst day of our lives. We’re embarrassed by what happened. We’re so sorry.’ But the other element was local law enforcement that usually would come in and help out. There was very little preparation for the event on July 13, and I think that’s what I would say. The lack of preparation, the lack of coordination, and more than anything, the lack of communication on July 13, were some of the biggest things that we looked at. So how did you guys ever imagine that this would work? There’s just nothing that makes sense that happened that day.
REP. CROW: You know, I’ve learned in my time in Congress that, you know, agencies and departments, when they do after action reviews of things that have gone wrong, that they’ll often look at the operational and the tactical level of what happened, but they almost never look at the structural level. You know, they don’t critique their structure. They won’t critique their- their superiors, the agencies that they’re nestled within. They will very often not look at overall resourcing, money because of the politics of making asks like that. And they very rarely ever look at culture, right, because it’s just too sensitive for them. So we- we actually took those, those areas really seriously. We looked at the Secret Service. Should it be nestled within DHS? Is it structured right? Does it get the resourcing and training? And then the area that I in particular looked at was the culture of the organization, because I was struck by the stories and the recount of the specific actions of officers and agents on the ground that day, and there were some heroic ones, but there were also a lot of examples of people that knew that something was wrong and they didn’t say anything, right? So one example of this is the drone operator. So Secret Service has these drone operators, and they literally bought a drone off the market, a commercially available drone, they showed up with this drone in a box. It didn’t work, they didn’t know how to make it work, so they just put it aside and they didn’t have a drone.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So it wasn’t that the Secret Service didn’t have a drone? They just had a drone that didn’t work, or they didn’t know how to–
REP. CROW: That’s right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Use it.
REP. CROW: Yeah. They- they bought one off the commercial market. The operator that was responsible for operating it was not trained on how to fix it, on how to troubleshoot it, so, you know, spent an hour trying to get it to work, couldn’t get it to work, threw up his hands, put it aside and they were without a drone. And a drone could have prevented, potentially, the shooting. But, you know, the- the larger point of that story is not that they couldn’t get the drone to work, which is problematic in and of itself, but that nobody said, hey, we don’t have aerial coverage. We don’t have a central element of our security plan. So let’s revise- let’s revisit our plan and make changes that are necessary here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But why? Because you- you did hone in on, during the hearing as well, on the issue of culture. Why didn’t anyone say anything? Were they unaware of vulnerabilities? Or is there a culture of silence where people speaking up get smacked down for doing so.
REP. CROW: That’s- that- that is my concern, is that there’s a culture of silence and that individual officers and agents are not empowered to say something is wrong. Now think about it this way. There are examples of this in- in our daily lives, right? When we all get onto an airplane, we get onto a flight to go anywhere, to visit our family, there- there is a standing rule in commercial aviation that anybody in the cockpit, regardless of your position, whether you’re the captain or the first officer or the brand new pilot sitting there being trained, anyone at any time can call something out and say, this is unsafe, we’re going to stop it, right? And that is designed for safety, and there are plenty of examples in which that actually saves people’s lives.
REP. KELLY: Absolutely.
REP. CROW: That same mentality didn’t appear to be a part of what happened at Butler, Pennsylvania. So the question is, how do we change- help change overall culture?
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a very hard thing to solve for.
REP. CROW: It’s very hard.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, Congressman Kelly on that point, I mean, some of this sounds like management 101, that this is not specific to the Secret Service. A lot of organizations have problems like what you just highlighted there. Acting Director Rowe testified Thursday. He thinks the Secret Service needs to identify leaders earlier on and promote them based on ability, not just hours logged on the clock.
REP. KELLY: But isn’t that true of everything in life? When you look at this, when people talk about, we need better leadership than that, but my question is then, where do you go to get that talent, and when you find that talent, do you let it escalate, or do you- do you tamp it down? I would just say, whenever we got further and further- the day- I was there, from the time they said they were coming to Butler to find- I was on those grounds the night before, they weren’t set up at that point, they were going to work through the night to get it ready. And then you find out afterwards that there was no coordination, there was no team meeting, there was no ‘this is going to be your responsibility to know where you’re supposed to be and what time you’re supposed to be there.’ You bring local law enforcement in, but you don’t- you don’t include them in the planning, or when you do the- the interviews afterwards. ‘Well, I thought he was going to do it.’ ‘No, we thought somebody else was going to do it.’ When you look at local law enforcement, instead of one command center, there’s two command centers, right? And they are not able to communicate with each other. The thing I think that we look at, more than anything else, and I’ve said this since day one, the day that- that it happened. Why, when you knew there was a suspicious person on the grounds, and this is a common- going back and forth now, this is where they said they weren’t communicating with each other. You can’t tell me that you didn’t know till ten minutes after six, that you couldn’t communicate. At 11 minutes after six, the shooter took action. They knew an hour and a half ahead of time. Out of all the thousands of the people walking around on that terr- on that property, there was a suspicious person, and they kept losing sight of him. I would have said, and I have no background in law enforcement, keep the president back until we clear the area. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense, because they failed, from the first thing- from the picking of the site, preparing the site, to the coordination of the site, to the ability to communicate, at every step of the way, they failed. And the question is, why didn’t you just say, hold up, just hold up. Don’t let him come out. If that happens, Corey Comperatore is still alive today. The other two gentlemen that were- were wounded are still alive today, and more- and the person we never talk about is the shooter would still be alive today had they captured him ahead of time or pulled him off. That family lost a son that day. The Comperatore family lost their father and a husband that day. The two people that were wounded, were seriously wounded. It all could have been stopped by somebody saying, hold up.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, when the acting director says on Thursday of this week, we need to pick better leaders. That would suggest that the agency today does not necessarily have the leaders it needs to fix all the things you just laid out.
REP. KELLY: Oh- yeah and I think by saying what he said, that’s what he meant. They don’t have the leadership they need, and as Jason was just talking about, when they morphed them into Homeland Security back in 2001, whenever it was, they took away their identity and their exclusivity. When you’re the best of the best, when you’re the elite of the elites, if you lose that, then all of a sudden you just become part of a team. And there’s just something about it in human nature. If you can reach that pinnacle, if you can be the best of the best, that’s what you want to strive for all the time. But if all of a sudden, it’s like, just come on in, sit down, we’ll let you know when we need you. That kind of destroys that whole foundation that you have to have. And I just- I just think it was- there was a huge mistake back when Homeland came into existence. That’s not a criticism, because they did what they had to do back then, but I’m telling you, on July 13, there was a lack of professionalism, there was a lack of concern, there was a lack of coordination, and the ability to communicate is the one thing I’ll never understand. You knew you couldn’t talk to each other. Why did you go forward?
MARGARET BRENNAN: They were text messaging, right?
REP. KELLY: Yeah, yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Not using the radio.
REP. KELLY: Or cell phones.
REP. CROW: Can I comment on that?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, please.
REP. CROW: Here’s what I think is happening with leadership development and the status of leadership within Secret Service. And I- I want to be really clear that there are plenty of extraordinary agents and officers in the Secret Service, right? And when we talk about a failure of mission, you know, in Butler or any place else, that doesn’t mean that, you know, 80, 90% of the- of the Secret Service agents aren’t phenomenal and dedicated professionals. But there is a systematic problem here, and I’m familiar with this problem because it’s not that different from what the military has experienced the last 20 years because of the global war on terror. Let me explain what’s happening. We were- we were at war for 20 years, and we- we were at war in several different places, and we asked our military to deploy constantly. And I was- I was in the military for around four years, and during that time, I deployed three times, so I was either in deployment, getting back from a deployment, or getting ready for a deployment the entire time I was in active duty military and we weren’t doing our regular training cycles. So the military spent two decades doing that, and as a result of that, people missed their leadership development schools. They missed their training cycles. They missed that normal pipeline of how we create leaders. Because I’m somebody that believes that leaders are not born, that they’re developed and they’re made. And that requires intentional development over time, that requires a plan to develop it, and it requires time and resources to develop it. So you- you apply that to the Secret Service now, you know, the- the structure, the personnel, the staffing of the Secret Service, hasn’t changed in years, at the same time as we are now asking them to do things that they didn’t do a decade ago. And they are- they are fulfilling an operational tempo that requires them to be deployed three weeks out of a month, constantly doing events, skipping firearms training, skipping leadership development training. We are not developing their skills and their training. And I think you see the results of that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The acting director said, you- they are looking to hire 650 special agents, 350 uniformed division officers. You just said building experience takes time, so they’re trying to fix this, but it sounds like you could look at that and say they’re not ready for the job they have now, in this moment in time.
REP. CROW: There’s a- there’s a long-term problem and a short-term problem, right? The long-term problem is we actually need to make the commitment, the resourcing commitment, the structural commitment, and this is-this is a congressional responsibility, to set them up–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Funding.
REP. CROW: –for long term success. But in the short term, you’re right. You can’t mass produce a presidential detail Secret Service agent. It takes, on average, seven years to- from- from recruitment to training to get somebody ready to protect the President of the United States. We’re- we’re not going to speed that up, nor would anyone want to speed that up. That’s not a situation where you want to shortcut that, just like you wouldn’t want to speed up medical training for your doctor, right? So we have to look at, in the near term, then, who are those other individuals, those skill sets within Department of Defense, within Homeland Security, who can help cover down? And how can we use technology to actually supplement that, whether that’s drones, AI, other things that can take pressure off of some of the agents doing regular jobs that- that can be shifted so we can cover down in the ways we need to.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you made three dozen recommendations in this report on what to change, including to reduce the number of protectees. Right now, Secret Service protects not only presidential leadership, their immediate families, their spouses, their children, candidates, and anyone, really, the president designates. Should all of that continue?
REP. KELLY: Well, it depends, you know, as Jason just laid out, it- what is your main purpose? Look, we’ve increased the size of protectees that are out there, including foreign assets to come here and people to bring- bring their families and things. So that’s gotten so big, but if you look at Homeland, I think- I think when you look at Secret Service, it’s about 3% of their overall spend, the biggest spend is on FEMA. And we know we don’t want to change anything like that. But you can’t have an exclusive without funding them to the level that they need to be funded, not only in manpower and in training, but in the assets that they have to have available to them. If you increase the size and scope of what they’re supposed to do, but then you keep them housed under a smaller thing, and then try to move back and forth and bring just- not just, but when you bring other people from Homeland in to supplement what you don’t have in Secret Service, you’re going away, then, from that structure of, these are the people that we have ready to do this job. So I think what- and what- what the Director Rowe said yesterday, if you’re looking at a bigger team, you have to get more recruits. And once you get those recruits, you have to make sure that they’re ready to get on the field and do the job that they’re expected to do. My understanding, it’s very difficult now, screening and getting recruits to commit, I think it’s a very hard thing to do. And who is it that you’re looking for? The best of the best. How hard is it for them to get there? Really hard. So I think from a standpoint of team building, there has to be kind of a different things that- So he’s a special ops guy, or paratrooper. And I mean, not everybody can be a paratrooper. It takes a lot of training, because you’re not supposed to jump out of a plane unless it’s going down right, and you need some help. But it takes a special breed–
REP. CROW:
— It’s a commentary on our mindset, the mentality of paratroopers, more than anything else, we’re always a little bit off.
REP. KELLY:
Jump, jump. We were in Normandy this summer together- that’s the first time we had met, and he said, I’m going to be jumping out of the airplane tomorrow. I said, why in the world would you do that? He said, because that’s what I do. And I said, when was the last time you did it, on the 75th anniversary? I said, so five years ago was the last time you jumped out of a plane. Now go to what we’re talking about today. If I talk to a Secret Service guy, says, when was the last time you protected somebody? Well, five years ago. I said, No, no, no, you’re not the guy I’m looking for. You want the cream of the crop, right? But in order to get there, you have to develop where that person wants to be there so bad that he or she will do everything that’s possible to get there and- and I think that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for a really elite group. But then if we’re going to ask them to make that commitment to our country, we should make our commitment to make it possible for them to be the best of the best.
REP. CROW: So here’s how I look at the issue of the structure of the Secret Service. I actually don’t look at it differently than I look at the structure and the missions of any organization, whether it’s a business, a community club or organization, a political campaign. You always have to ask yourself, what are your missions and what is the thing that only you can do? Like, what is that no-fail mission? In this case, with the Secret Service, that no fail mission is to protect our highest level candidates and our highest level elected officials. Period. All the other things, investigation of financial crimes, training and support, these are all secondary missions. So if you’re not actually adequately performing any of those missions to standard, and if you reached a breaking point, then it’s time to assess, what are those missions that need to fall off and to be transitioned elsewhere? That’s my view. You can’t–
MARGARET BRENNAN: You want to cleave off the financial crimes unit?
REP. CROW: — I don’t know how else we can handle it, right? If- if we have a challenge of not being able to mass produce agents, right, if it takes time to do that, and those are longer term muscle movements, as I say- and this is a no-fail mission. It just can’t fail, today, tomorrow, the day after. Every single day, you have to show up and be perfect in that job. Then you have to, you just have to make a decision about what you’re not going to do so that you can perform that no-fail mission.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Kelly, right after Butler happened, Donald Trump said he thought the Secret Service actually did a good job that day. Do you get the sense that with the passage of time, he’s going to support or has any interest in some of the very specific recommendations that you’re making?
REP. KELLY: Okay, so I was about 60 feet away from the President when the shots rang out, and I just saw him grab his head and he went down, and I said, Oh my god, somebody just shot him. I will tell you this, within seconds, all these agents that were up on- the on the stage with him, covered him. Now, if I’m Donald Trump and I’m thinking, these guys were there, right there, the problem wasn’t the people that were around him. The problem was the people around him weren’t being communicated with by- from other people. So they were reacting to, boom, I got to be there. So if I were Donald Trump, I would be very thankful for that, right? But the question wasn’t- was it the Secret Service that was around him? It was about the Secret Service and the rest of law enforcement, the rest of the people there to protect him, that outer shell–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — The infrastructure, the management, the support–
REP. KELLY:– It was the infrastructure that failed. It wasn’t the group that was around him. So yes, if I’m him, I’m saying, yeah, thank you. You guys were able to put- you were going to put your life on the line to protect me. And they did it within a second or two. But then when he got back up, and I thought, this is, this is absolutely insane, it was just like, my gosh. I can’t believe this happened. And then- I will say one thing, though, because it’s- when he broke out of that, and he put his hand up, now, when you keep in mind, there’s maybe 25, 30,000 people, and they’re all on the ground. When he stands up and goes ‘fight,’ the rest of these people stand up, and I’m thinking, what in the world? And he- they’re- they’re chanting USA. I thought, you know what, this is a pretty tough country. You know, they all stand up and they start going, ‘USA.’ And I thought, oh my gosh. Now for me that day, it was difficult. My wife, three of my grandchildren, my son, were there with me, but they weren’t where they were supposed to be because of the lack of coordination. So I had a lot of concerns that day. The first one being, where’s my wife? Where’s my grandkids? Where’s my son? And there was a lady named Mrs. Fogel sitting beside me. Marc Fogel who is a teacher from Butler who is imprisoned in- in Russia right now. They were all there for this event. And you watch how quickly that happened and how- how afterwards, it’s the after thought you think about, how in the world did this happen? How did this happen in Butler, Pennsylvania, the home of the Jeep and on farm show grounds and an attempted assassination of a president, it’s like, wow, times have changed.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And then weeks later, it nearly happened again down in Mar a Lago.
REP. KELLY: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We know very little. And you Congressman Crow seemed very frustrated, based on the report and the hearing–
REP. CROW: — Do I seem frustrated?–
REP. KELLY: — No, no, you’re very–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — with the fact that you couldn’t find out more about the shooter, both in Butler and in- the potential shooter, in Mar a Lago?
REP. CROW: Well, you know, we completed a five-month investigation which was comprehensive, it was thorough, and it tells, you know, the full story about the actions of the Secret Service and state and local law enforcement and what happened and what didn’t happen. Right? That we have the definitive story of that, and we have recommendations around that. There is one area, as you point out, that we weren’t able to get to. That- that’s actually a really important element to the story. And people have rightful questions about it. I have questions about it. And that is, why did the shooter do this? What drove him to do it? Was he a lone wolf shooter? Did he have associates or affiliates? What was his motivation? How was he radicalized?
MARGARET BRENNAN: This is Thomas Matthews Crooks?
REP. CROW : That’s right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Who took these shots with an AR-15?
REP. CROW: Yeah, these are important questions that America deserves answers to, that Congress deserves answers to. So we endeavored to get answers to those questions. We submitted numerous requests to the Department of Justice and FBI. Their response is, this is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we can’t give that information to Congress. That, in my view, is an unacceptable position. And here’s why–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — For both Butler and Mar a Lago, that was the answer?
REP. CROW: Correct. That’s right. And here’s why that’s unacceptable. Congress is what we like to say, is the article one branch of the Constitution. The founders made us first. They put us first in the constitution for a reason, because we are supposed to be the preeminent branch with oversight authority over the executive branch, with preeminent oversight authority over the executive branch. So you can’t come and tell me that there’s whole areas of information that we can’t access because of an ongoing criminal investigation. And then to add to that, if they’re concerned about the protection of that information, about the dissemination of that information, and compromising an investigation, I understand those concerns, but I sit on the Intelligence Committee, I’ve sat on the Armed Services Committee, and Congress all the time gets access to our nation’s most sensitive secrets. Ongoing operations, intelligence operations, military operations, so you can’t tell me that there isn’t a way to put us into a secure facility and get us information about an ongoing criminal investigation when I regularly am receiving briefs on what our- our spies and our military special operators are doing regularly around the world. So none of this stands to reason, and we have dedicated ourselves to continue to get those answers. And if the FBI and DOJ thinks that they can wait us out and stonewall us, they are wrong.
REP. KELLY: — Good luck–
REP. CROW: — Because members of our task force, even after we sunset in a couple of weeks here, sit on all of these committees, and we will get that information.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why– you used the term “slowwalk” us? You think they’re intentionally withholding information?
REP. CROW: I don’t know what their intention is. I’m not a mind reader, but, you know, I’ve been around Congress long enough to know what- what people do–
REP. KELLY: –When you get stonewalled–
REP. CROW: –When you’re getting stonewalled. I mean, listen, this is, this is not uncommon when you’re dealing with agencies and departments. It’s a pretty regular method, and it’s something that, you know, we encounter all the time in our oversight responsibilities, so–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why do you think that is?
REP. KELLY: You know what– in my life, right? And I’ve done a lot of different things, but most have been in the retail- in the public. It’s always bothered me with there’s a sense of paranoia with these agencies, and when you ask them a question, they would- they would try to come back to you, why are you asking that question? I said, well, why are you asking me why I’m asking that question? Why don’t you just answer it and we can go to the next subject. It’s- it’s that holding back, that holding back, that holding back. It’s like, well, we don’t trust you. And that’s a well, that’s- that’s why we’re here today because you know what–
(CROSSTALK)
MARGARET BRENNAN: –There is quite–
REP. KELLY: –I’m not so sure the American people–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — a lot of political tension, —
REP. KELLY: — You know when we started–
MARGARET BRENNAN– between the Congress and the Justice Department–
REP. CROW: — Well there should be. They’re often like, hey,–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –and the FBI.
(END CROSSTALK)
REP. CROW: –you’re out to get us. Like, well, we’re not out to get you, but we are out to hold you accountable and to get answers. So, I mean, we’re not, we’re not here to- to, you know, just play nice all the time. We have independent obligations.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I mean the seriousness of the task and what was being looked at you think should have compelled the FBI and the DOJ to share the information about what they know of the, now deceased, alleged shooter in Butler and the attempted shooter in Mar a Lago.
REP. KELLY: Absolutely.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What is it that you want to know about them? Because the public knows very little about Mr. Crooks, in particular.
REP. KELLY: When you look at him and you try to find out- having four children and 10 grandchildren, parents are usually the best people to go to. You were talking earlier, you have family of your own. I think as a parent, you’re more aware of what’s going on with your child. What are her good days? What are her bad days? What is it that’s bothering her? There’s something there that’s missing. I don’t know what it is and I’m not making a criticism. It’s just whenever we were asking questions and told, these are things that we’re not done investigating yet, and we’re tasked with getting something done in a time period. And at the very beginning of this, do you know our whole- our whole effort was to restore the faith and trust and confidence the American people must have in these institutions. When they stonewall you, when they hold you back, what would you automatically think? What is it they don’t want us to know? Listen, I don’t know enough about Mr. Crooks or the Crooks family. I just know that a lot of- a lot of things happened that day that didn’t have to happen that day. But now, when you do the aftermath of, okay, so what is it we could have done different, and why aren’t you telling us certain things that we need to know? Don’t stonewall us because when you stonewall us, my feeling is, and I think Jason is the same way, there’s something you don’t want us to know. Was the failure where, and is it that you don’t want to take that? Because as we went through all this stuff and the finger pointing, it wasn’t my job, it was his job. And it’s like, wait a minute. Just stop. Just stop. We’re not here to get rid of you. We’re here to make sure this doesn’t happen again, to the best of our abilities. So it was frustrating.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So we don’t know, or tell me if perhaps you know answers–
REP. CROW: Yeah we–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Was there a foreign nexus? Do we know yes or no?
REP. CROW: Margaret, I will get to that. But I want to, I just want to lay the groundwork a little bit for this issue. You know, we’re in an age of incredible disinformation and misinformation. Americans are deluged with misinformation and disinformation that’s coming from a variety of sources. Our adversaries, our state adversaries, Russia, China and others, non-state actors. And there’s a lot of conspiracy theories out there. And conspiracy theories sometimes take root when there’s a lack of information or there’s conflicting information. So our job is to try to get information out there, to be transparent, to be accessible, to tell the real story. And that’s why this is important. This element of that story is important because there’s a lot of conspiracies around–
REP. KELLY: –Absolutely–
REP. CROW: –These shootings, right? And we take that seriously. We want to- we want to, you know, rebuff those. But you know, in this case, and I sit on a lot of other committees with access to information, I have seen no evidence that a state actor and adversary was responsible for either of these attempted assassination attempts. I have seen no evidence. But you know, when you’re in a position where you know the government says, “well, it’s not this, but we won’t tell you what it is.” Right? And “we can’t tell you, we can’t tell you definitively.” Well, you know, people respond and have questions about that, and I understand that mentality. So even though we don’t have evidence of one thing, people still want to know what else it is. And I still want to know what else it is.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Did he act alone? Do we know that?
REP. CROW: We don’t know that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Or Congress doesn’t know that.
REP. CROW: Yeah, and you know, it’s one thing to say, and I’m going to be really clear about this, because this is very, very sensitive territory, because we want to make sure we’re not–
MARGARET BRENNAN: -Right–
REP. CROW: –Getting people spun up unnecessarily. There is no evidence of- from other sources, you know, internal government sources, from our investigation, that others were involved, that he acted with others, and that a foreign state or adversary was involved in this. But that still raises the question of, why did he do this? Was just- was he just a disturbed young man who decided to take action alone? Probably, I mean, that’s probably the answer.
REP. KELLY: That’s what it looks like now.
REP. CROW: Right. That’s what it looks like. But we need to know, right? And let’s get the information out there that the government has to make sure that we can settle this. And that’s, that’s our obligation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And, you know, I asked you specifically about foreign nexus, because, as you know, Congressman Kelly, in the weeks leading up to this, there was more information about a direct threat to the now President-elect Donald Trump from the Iranian regime. It was a heightened threat environment. There was a specific, known actor that they were worried about, and because of that, security was increased. So we’re not just talking about day to day Secret Service protection. You’re talking about an environment where there were threats, known threats. So in that environment, that doesn’t speak to a lot of- I mean, you laid out a lot of concerns you have.
REP. KELLY: Oh, absolutely.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But is the agency today able to do its job if they weren’t able to do it in July?
REP. KELLY: Well, I would sure hope that they understand that there’s more oversight. And when you, when you as you speak, as a foreign government getting involved in it. It’s part of the testimony. It’s a back and forth between, actually, the people that were there saying “I wonder if this could have been part of what they were referring to with a foreign adversary.” I wondered why they didn’t share more of it. And I think that- now these are the people you have on the ground doing the protection, and they’re saying this as- afterwards, “I wonder if this was what they were talking about, and why didn’t we know more about it?” In fact, some of them knew nothing about it at all. You know, back to what you said in the beginning, this is a preparation for anything that is, is the indication of whether it’s going to go well or not. There’s so many missing pieces on this one. And I think that we’re frustrated. And I think the- the task force, the 30 people that were working on this every single day, were frustrated, too. How could there be so many missing pieces, this, it just doesn’t make sense that none of this stuff came together, and on that day, none of it, none of it was coordinated. It was just thrown together. And now we look at it and think, you know what we were tasked with, trying to find out what happened that day, why it happened that day, into- into the best of our ability make sure that the Secret Service, that doesn’t happen again to them. We can’t guarantee that these things won’t happen, because it’s a crazy world right now. But there was too much ahead of time that we did know that we didn’t share. And I- I know when you talk to them, the key to everything is communication. The lack of communication. I’ll never understand when it comes down to that, and I’m not going to repeat it again, because I’ve said it- my wife said please quit talking that way, but I would never let my child play near a road. And when you do, you put people in jeopardy of that. And you know there’s a danger there. Don’t let it happen. This doesn’t, I don’t think it’s- you don’t have to have a degree and everything to understand protection is protection. The main job of Secret Service on that day was that they have protectees. And if that’s, if that’s our mission, then we can slow walk and help them out with different assets that maybe they don’t have, but it was for me, that day, that was a signal that there’s something wrong. And as we went through the task force, the inability to communicate, even with the- the federal agencies are on board, that just sends up a red flag right away. I said, why won’t you tell us what we’re asking you, and if it comes back, we don’t know why we’re asking- why you’re asking us that. That is because we were tasked to find out. At the end of the day, the American people have to have confidence in you, and at this point, it’s hard to have confidence with people who won’t share information with you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s- there are already proposals out there. One of your Democratic colleagues has proposed cleaving it off from DHS. Others have proposed other visions for what to do to the agency. In the new Congress, where does this rank in terms of priority?
REP. CROW: Well, pretty high for us, right? I mean, as we already talked about, it’s a very dangerous world. You know, you have Iran targeting- this is public now, there have been public indictments released by Department of Justice. You have Iran targeting for assassination, current and former administration officials, American elected officials, in the United States. You have, you have, you know, the Wall Street Journal reported not long ago about Chinese hacking of our telecommunication systems, possibly the largest hack and breach in American history. Our adversaries are doing troubling, deeply troubling things right now as we’re sitting here speaking about it. So it’s a dangerous world–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –and domestic actors. Heightened threat environment.
REP. CROW: –And domestic actors, domestic extreme- extremism too. You’re absolutely right. So again, this goes back to this being a no-fail mission, having to make sure that we are both raising the fences around the things we need to protect, but also establishing deterrence with respect to our foreign adversaries. We can’t be in a position anymore where our rivals, our adversaries, are doing these things without substantial cost, without substantial response to them. There has to be penalties imposed much harsher penalties imposed for them doing it because right now, clearly deterrence, in several important respects, has not been established. So, we are going to do both to make sure that our people are protected, because we just cannot be in a situation where our highest elected officials are at risk here.
REP. KELLY: Totally agree.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m getting a wrap on time. But is there anything that you feel important to raise that we didn’t talk about?
REP. KELLY: Well I think that from the very beginning, we never identified as Republicans and Democrats. We, we defined as a task force to find out what happened that day. And the whole, the whole goal from day one is to restore the faith and trust and confidence that the American people must have in this agency. At this point it’s probably at the lowest ebb it’s ever been. And the other thing is, I think we realize that threats are 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, you can’t take a day off. You can’t take a play off. You’ve got to be ready every single moment for anything that could possibly happen. Is that a difficult task? Yes. Is it almost impossible? Yes, there’s a lot of bad actors out there. But you know what’s not impossible? Our dedication to the fact that we’re going to do the best we can do every single day to ensure that the American people have the faith and trust and confidence they must have in us. We both represent three quarters of a million people. They sent us here to represent them. And so that’s the message, I think, from day one, I would just- and this guy’s got background in it, I don’t. But our task force worked together so well. And I think the best thing is, you know what, there’s not an election year which really can take the focus off of these different things that come up from a political standpoint. This isn’t political for me. This is strong policy for the American people.
REP. CROW: This is a tough place to work. And there are, frankly, there are some people here that don’t belong here, that I think are just here to get attention to get, you know, clicks on social media, that aren’t here to legislate. But this has been one of the best experiences of my time in Congress, and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Mike Kelly. You know, and he’s a very conservative Republican and I’m a Democrat. We’re both proud of that. We’re proud of our politics, and–
REP. KELLY: –We are–
REP. CROW: We represent our districts, right?–
REP. KELLY: –We do, we do–
REP. CROW: That’s actually, that’s actually the job, right? We represent the culture and the politics and the hopes and dreams of our districts. And that’s what’s so, so beautiful about this place when it works well. But this process, and I think this is really important for Americans to understand, this process was serious, it was bipartisan, it was- it was deep, and we did the job that we were asked to do. And not a lot of people get exposure to that, you know, they just see these clips of people doing crazy things here. And I would just encourage people to read the report, to look at what we did here, and to know that, you know, important things can still get done.
REP. KELLY: At the very end, the suggestions we have–
MARGARET BRENNAN: They’re very specific.
REP. KELLY: They’re very specific, but there’s nothing that most people say, “why in the world would they think of that?” And then the answer is, that’s the same way you would think, if you were going on a trip or doing anything and taking your children with you, you would- you go through that same checklist. Everything in life revolves around a checklist, and the worst thing you can do is stop using the checklist.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will see what happens in the new Congress with the new president and the choice of a potentially new director. Thank you.
REP. CROW: Thank you.
REP. KELLY: Thanks for having us.
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