Lawmakers have announced multiple probes into the Secret Service over its failure to prevent the shooting.
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Secret Service is facing multiple congressional investigations into its actions surrounding a failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13.
Bipartisan members of Congress widely condemned the assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and several have announced investigations into the Secret Service’s security arrangements for the event, with a series of hearings planned beginning the week of July 22, when Congress reconvenes.
Former President Trump was speaking at the rally on July 13 when, at 6:11 p.m., he was
shot at by
Thomas Matthew Crooks from the roof of a nearby building. One bullet grazed the former president’s right ear, which was bleeding as he was rushed off the stage by Secret Service agents. A rally attendee was killed and two were wounded.
Mr. Crooks was immediately fatally
shot by Secret Service counter-snipers. The incident was the first time in more than 40 years that a U.S. president was wounded in an assassination attempt, since John Hinckley Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981.
The Secret Service,
by law, is charged with protecting current and former U.S. presidents, and the agency has secured all of former President Trump’s political rallies during his current presidential campaign.
“The United States 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,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability,
wrote in a statement. Mr. Comer’s committee will hold the first public hearing on July 22 regarding the incident and will feature Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.
“Americans demand answers from Director Kimberly Cheatle about these security lapses and how we can prevent this from happening again,” Mr. Comer said in his statement.
The committee sent a
letter to Ms. Cheatle demanding that she turn over all documents, audio and video recordings, text messages, emails, maps, and surveillance data used by the Secret Service to secure the rally before the hearing, at which she will be questioned by lawmakers.
Those lawmakers plan to question why the rooftop from which Mr. Crooks fired—a mere 430 feet from the stage where former President Trump stood—wasn’t secured before the rally began. Attendees of the rally saw Mr. Crooks on the roof and pointed him out to police officers before the shots were fired, according to videos from the rally reviewed by
The Epoch Times.
A spokesperson for Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), a member of the Oversight Committee, told The Epoch Times that he would “be very interested in understanding how law enforcement failed to provide a secure perimeter, why law enforcement ignored multiple warnings that an assassin was positioned on a nearby roof, and whether law enforcement ignored President Trump’s requests for beefed-up security resources.”
The Secret Service has refuted allegations that the Trump campaign had asked for extra security for the Pennsylvania rally but was denied.
“This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi
wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The House Homeland Security Committee also plans to hold a
hearing with Ms. Cheatle on July 23 regarding the incident that will also feature Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Mr. Mayorkas oversees the Secret Service, while the FBI is leading the criminal
investigation into Mr. Crooks and his motives for the shooting.
Ms. Cheatle has
declined to resign after the incident despite calls from Congress for her to do so. Both she and Mr. Mayorkas acknowledge that the Secret Service failed in its mission to prevent the shooting.
“A direct line of sight like that to the former president should not occur,” Mr. Mayorkas said on July 15.
In the Senate, an investigation into the Secret Service’s security failures at the rally is being conducted by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. It plans to hold a hearing by Aug. 1 to hear testimony from Ms. Cheatle, Mr. Mayorkas, and Mr. Wray.
“This committee has an obligation to unearth the truth about the failures on Saturday and before, no matter how inconvenient to the government,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the committee’s ranking member, said in a statement announcing the investigation. “We will leave no stone unturned.”
Several other Senate and House committees are also looking to investigate the Secret Service.
“The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has an obligation to exercise its jurisdiction and oversight authority,” Republican senators of that committee
wrote to its chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
“We will also work with the appropriate Congressional committees on any oversight action,” Ms. Cheatle wrote in a
statement.
The Secret Service was supposed to virtually brief lawmakers of the House Oversight Committee on July 16 regarding the incident, but that briefing didn’t occur after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allegedly refused to confirm a time, a spokesperson for the committee told The Epoch Times.
The spokesperson said the committee would formally subpoena Ms. Cheatle for its July 22 hearing “to head off any attempt by DHS to backtrack on her appearance.”
The congressional investigations into the Secret Service are being conducted alongside an
independent review ordered by President Joe Biden regarding the shooting.
“We’ll share the results of that independent review with the American people,” President Biden said.
At a White House news briefing on July 15, Mr. Mayorkas said that the review would “identify the immediate and longer-term corrective actions” needed to prevent such a shooting from occurring again.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service didn’t respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.
