Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Thursday that he is "pretty encouraged" by the new acting director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe.
After the resignation of former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who presided over the missteps that led to an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and the ensuing fallout, Johnson said Thursday's briefing by Rowe was "confidence building."
"We were briefed by acting Director Ron Rowe as well as an FBI briefer and it was, quite honestly, a confidence-building briefing. They were pretty forthright," Johnson said on "Newsline." "You can tell that acting Director Rowe is viscerally concerned about what happened to his agency [in Butler, Pennsylvania], and he wants to correct it. He said he can't defend what happened in Pennsylvania. He went there yesterday."
Rowe was named acting director by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday after Cheatle resigned. Cheatle fought for nine days to keep her job but her performance before a House panel on Monday resulted in calls for her to resign from Democrats and Republicans.
"I was actually pretty encouraged by what we heard in our briefing," Johnson said, "and we're going to have a hearing on Tuesday at Homeland Security, Government Affairs. So hopefully, it will be very transparent with the American public as genuine and forthright as he was in the briefing this morning."
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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