The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer, has already teed up a hearing on the attempted assassination of Trump.
“I have already contacted the Secret Service for a briefing and am also calling on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to appear for a hearing. The Oversight Committee will send a formal invitation soon," Comer said in a statement. The hearings are expected to begin soon after the Republican Convention concludes.
Speaker Mike Johnson said, “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.”
“It’s a wonder Donald Trump is alive," wrote Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. "Let’s call this what it was. An assassination attempt with at least one innocent bystander murdered. The nation needs to know who did this. And why. And we need a full, public investigation by Congress into HOW it happened.”
Cheatle's head is on the chopping block already, following her disrespect of Republican concerns about security at the Milwaukee convention. There have already been charges that the Trump campaign asked for additional protection, but was denied by Cheatle and her boss, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources and that those were rebuffed,” said Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. “This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”
The FBI also pushed back on the implication on Saturday night.
“There was no additional request for security that was ever denied by the FBI,” Kevin Rojek, the FBI special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh office, said.
We have no reason to disbelieve their statements. The story will come out in the hearings where it will be hard to hide a refusal to grant extra protection for a former president. Cheatle will be the first one to run the gauntlet on July 22.
🚨BREAKING🚨@RepJamesComer has invited U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing on Monday, July 22.
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 14, 2024
Americans demand answers about the assassination attempt of President Trump. pic.twitter.com/zKia2oIxCf
What makes the Trump assassination attempt so troubling is that it's not the first recent lapse in security by the Secret Service.
The scrutiny comes as the Secret Service has dealt with security lapses in recent months and years. In May 2023, an intruder gained access to the home of Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, despite his round-the-clock Secret Service protection. Sullivan encountered the intruder in his home and alerted his security detail. Sullivan was unharmed.
On January 6, 2021, then-incoming Vice President Kamala Harris was driven by her security detail yards away from a pipe bomb outside the Democratic National Headquarters. She was evacuated after law enforcement discovered the pipe bomb which was more than 90 minutes after her arrival.
Frequent scandals in the last decades have tarnished the squeaky-clean image of the presidential protection detail. Whatever reforms are needed, now is the time to initiate them. We could start by getting rid of Cheatle, who is either a rabid partisan or a complete idiot.
Let the ax fall cleanly, but often.
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