The House Oversight Committee on Monday is holding the first public hearing on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, as lawmakers question how a lone gunman was able to nearly kill the Republican presidential nominee.
It’s a high-stakes moment for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who is the sole witness at the hearing. She is testifying before a panel full of Republicans who have called on her to resign, including Oversight Chair James Comer of Kentucky.
“It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign,” Mr. Comer reiterated at the hearing in his opening remarks. “However — in complete defiance — Director Cheatle has maintained she will not tender her resignation. Therefore, she will answer questions today from members of this committee seeking to provide clarity to the American people about how these events were allowed to transpire.”
Ms. Cheatle has been criticized for her agency’s decision to let Mr. Trump take the stage at his campaign rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, after identifying a potential threat.
The Secret Service revealed to lawmakers in briefings last week that law enforcement had flagged a suspicious person walking around with a rangefinder and a backpack nearly an hour before the rally began. Before Mr. Trump started speaking, the Secret Service upgraded their assessment of the suspicious person to identify him as a potential threat.
The person whom law enforcement officials had been monitoring — later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks — was able to get onto the roof of a building outside the official security perimeter of the rally site and fire multiple rounds.
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One of Crooks’ bullets grazed Mr. Trump in the ear and others hit rallygoers, killing one and critically injuring two others.
“While we give overwhelming thanks to the individual Secret Service agents who did their jobs under immense pressure, this tragedy was preventable,” Mr. Comer said in his opening remarks. “The Secret Service has a zero fail mission, but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally. The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a significant budget, but it has now become the face of incompetence.”
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that over the past two years, Mr. Trump’s security detail requested additional resources to protect the former president at large events, including more magnetometers, agents, snipers and speciality teams, but was repeatedly denied, in part because of limited resources.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, after previously characterizing as “absolutely false” reports that Mr. Trump’s team was denied more security resources, told the newspaper the agency learned new information indicating its headquarters may have denied some requests for additional security and was reviewing documentation to understand the specifics.
“The Secret Service has a vast, challenging, and intricate mission,” he said in a statement. “Every day we work in a dynamic threat environment to ensure our protectees are safe and secure across multiple events, travel, and other difficult environments. We execute a comprehensive and layered strategy to balance personnel, technology, and specialized operational needs.”
Mr. Comer said on “Fox News Sunday” that Congress has appropriated “more than enough” money to the Secret Service for the agency to do its job.
“The Secret Service has a budget of $3.1 billion,” he said. “So we have a lot of questions as to how they’re managing their money.”
The Oversight Committee has heard from whistleblowers who have flagged things that went wrong at the rally and lawmakers will ask those questions, including why the Secret Service did not use drones to monitor the area, Mr. Comer said.
“There are reports that the shooter had a drone just a few hours before the event, scoping it out,” he said. “There are reports that there were Secret Service in the building where the shooter was on the roof but they didn’t go on the roof because it was too hot.”
Mr. Comer said he will question whether any of the Secret Service protectees can feel secure under Ms. Cheatle’s leadership.
“The safety of Secret Service protectees is not based on their political affiliation,” he will say. “And the bottom line is that under Director Cheatle’s leadership, we question whether anyone is safe. Not President Biden, not the first lady, not the White House, not presidential candidates.”
While none of the Democrats on the Oversight Committee have called on Ms. Cheatle to resign, panel member Rep. Jared Moskowitz said a “thorough investigation” of the security failures at Mr. Trump’s rally could eventually lead to her removal.
“There has to be accountability,” the Florida Democrat said on CNN last week. “You can’t just have a failure where a former president almost gets assassinated and there’s no accountability.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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