The House Homeland Security Committee issued a subpoena Friday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding details on the Secret Service’s preparations for the rally that nearly took the life of former President Donald Trump.
Chairman Mark Green said he tried to win cooperation from Mr. Mayorkas but the department, which oversees the Secret Service, hasn’t come through with what he’s seeking.
Among the documents are the plans for security in Butler, Pennsylvania, and details of the agency’s immediate response after a gunman’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of killing Mr. Trump. The former president said his life was saved only because he was turning his head at that moment to look at a chart behind him.
Mr. Green fired off a letter on Sunday, the day after the shooting, with his requests, and acknowledged the short deadline for compliance. But he said the seriousness of the issue and the immediacy of needing to get better security amid the election compelled him to the subpoena.
He said the response from Mr. Mayorkas’s team has been a “vague” stiff-arm that it needed to wait until the end of the Republican National Convention and an internal review.
“There can be no room for failure in the Secret Service’s protective mission,” Mr. Green, Tennessee Republican, said in a letter to Mr. Mayorkas.
Congress was not in session this past week but returns on Monday with lawmakers of both parties expressing dismay at the assassination attempt and what, at least now, appears to be weak explanations for why the Secret Service left a rooftop unprotected, allowing the shooter a vantage point to let loose a series of shots.
One man was killed while shielding his family from bullets. Two others were critically wounded. Mr. Trump was grazed by a round, bloodying his ear.
The House Oversight Committee has a hearing with the Secret Service director scheduled for Monday and FBI Director Christopher Wray was already slated to appear for a broad hearing before another committee on Wednesday.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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