WASHINGTON — The US Secret Service's new acting director said on Tuesday (July 30) that he was "ashamed" of a security lapse that led to the July 13 attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but blamed the shortfall on local law enforcement.

In testimony before two Senate committees, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said he visited the outdoor rally site in Butler, Pennsylvania, and climbed onto the roof of a nearby building from which 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired shots that wounded Trump's right ear, killed one rally attendee and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle.

"What I saw made me ashamed," Rowe told a joint hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees. "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."

The first shooting of a US president or major party candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security lapse that led last week to former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation under bipartisan congressional pressure.

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