Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will testify next week before the GOP-led House Oversight Committee on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the panel announced on Monday.
Scheduled to take place on Capitol Hill at 10 a.m. ET on Monday, the public hearing will give lawmakers and the American people a chance to hear first-hand about the attack that took place at Trump’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend.
“The Secret Service has a no-fail mission, yet it failed on Saturday when a madman attempted to assassinate President Trump, killed an innocent victim, and harmed others,” Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said in a post to X, adding that his panel will “get answers.”
On Saturday, a gunman opened fire and a bullet ripped through Trump’s ear. Secret Service personnel killed the shooter, but not before one rally-goer was killed and two others were injured, and rushed to the former president to offer him protection.
Questions have been raised about how the shooter managed to get onto a nearby rooftop and start shooting from roughly 150 yards away. Sources told NBC News the Secret Service had even identified the roof as a vulnerability before the rally.
Cheatle, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, has said the “Secret Service is tasked with the tremendous responsibility of protecting the current and former leaders of our democracy. It is a responsibility that I take incredibly seriously, and I am committed to fulfilling that mission.”
GOP senators are pushing the Democrat-led Judiciary Committee in the upper chamber to secure testimony not only from Cheatle, but also Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray for a hearing.
And following the shooting, which did not stop Trump from flying out to Milwaukee this week for the Republican National Convention, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced the House would conduct a “full investigation” into the attack.
“The American people deserve to know the truth. We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP,” he said in a post to X on Sunday.
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to Mayorkas demanding information while noting “some reporting” that suggested his agency “rebuffed” multiple requests from Trump’s security detail to increase protective resources in recent weeks.
In a post to X on Sunday, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that there was “an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed.”
Guglielmi added, “This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers in the House, Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), said they were putting together legislation that would beef up Secret Service protection for presidential candidates, including Trump, Biden, and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
No comments:
Post a Comment