Secret Service director ordered to attend hearing over Donald Trump shooting as she’s blasted for ‘lack of transparency’
THE House Oversight and Accountability Committee subpoenaed the director of the Secret Service on Wednesday following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will appear before the committee on Monday for what is to be the first congressional hearing into the attempted assassination.
James Comer, the chairman of the committee, said the Secret Service committed to her attendance.
However, Homeland Security officials intervened, saying there haven’t been any “meaningful updates or information” shared with the committee.
Comer said the subpoena became necessary after the “lack of transparency and failure to cooperate” with the committee led many to question Cheatle’s leadership.
Cheatle said she would fully participate in a review and would work with congressional committees that look into the shooting.
She added that she and the agency understand the importance of a review ordered by President Joe Biden.
“The assassination attempt of the former President and current Republican nominee for president represents a total failure of the agency’s core mission and demands Congressional oversight,” Comer wrote in a letter to Cheatle.
Also on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed that he plans on creating a task force to investigate security failures during the assassination attempt.
He added that he would call for Cheatle to resign from her post as director.
“I think she’s shown what her priorities are,” Johnson told Fox News.
He said the task force would be bipartisan and that it’s being created to speed up the investigative process.
“There’s not a lot of the procedural hurdles, and we’ll have subpoena authority for that task force as well,” said Johnson.
Like Comer, Johnson said he hasn’t received satisfactory answers from Homeland Security or the FBI.
“We must have accountability for this. It was inexcusable,” he said.
“Obviously, there were security lapses. You don’t have to be a special ops expert to understand that. And we’re going to get down to the bottom of it quickly.”
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general shared on Wednesday that it also opened an investigation into the Secret Service.
A note posted on the inspector general’s website read that the investigation will “Evaluate the United States Secret Service’s (Secret Service) process for securing former President Trump’s July 13, 2024 campaign event.”
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