Far-right House members open useless, parallel probe into Trump shooting

The House’s two investigations into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump held competing events on Monday.

Why are there two investigations, and why are they competing? you might ask. Well, the first is the official bipartisan task force, which the House unanimously voted to create in late July. House Speaker Mike Johnson did the right thing then, working with Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to appoint members—including mostly serious Republicans—to investigate what happened on July 13.

On Monday, this panel met with law enforcement in Butler, Pennsylvania, and toured the rally grounds where the attempted assassination took place. At the same time, a few hundred miles away, some of the House GOP’s least serious members held a forum in Washington, D.C., and called it “hearing,” the first of their so-called “parallel investigation.”

“While this is the first hearing ... it won’t be the last,” far-right Rep. Cory Mills said during the event. “This is a message to all of Congress. … There are members [and] conservatives who will not be silenced.”