House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) recently said he is prepared to call for President Biden to fire the United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle if she fails to resign after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during his Butler, Pennsylvania rally last weekend. Cheatle has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the attempt on Trump’s life, where many have questioned how the incident could have possibly occurred.
The shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, managed to get within a relatively close shooting distance on a nearby rooftop with a line of sight toward Trump. Many have questioned how the Secret Service and local law enforcement could have allowed the area to be left unsecured, providing a perfect vantage point for a sniper.
Subsequently, Speaker Johnson said, “I’m prepared this morning to call on President Biden to fire Director Cheatle. Yesterday I said that she should resign. It’s clear that she has no intention to do so. But the oversight here, the mistakes, the ineptitude, whatever it is, was inexcusable.” Johnson maintained that further inquiry is required to obtain the necessary answers. “They did not give us satisfactory answers to some very important questions, and some of it needs to be in a classified setting, I suppose,” he said.
The speaker continued maintaining that the Secret Service needs to be held accountable for failing to fulfill the “No. 1” job of protecting the president. “But we’re going to say this publicly, and it begins on your show this morning that we need to get that done. We have to have accountability, and we have to have responsibility. The Secret Service has a critical job. The No. 1 job is to protect the president, former presidents and those who are campaigning for the office in this case. And they did none of that.”
Johnson added that there will be a bipartisan investigation into the assassination attempt to determine what went wrong. “We’re putting together a task force. We’re going to act with precision on this,” Johnson added. “It will be a bipartisan task force in the House with subpoena authority. We will get down to the bottom of this quickly so the American people have all the answers,” he said.
Furthermore, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) recently subpoenaed Director Cheatle to testify before the committee regarding the assassination attempt. “The Oversight Committee is investigating the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump. The Oversight Committee is subpoenaing you, Director of Secret Service, to appear for a public hearing on July 22, 2024, titled ‘Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump,’” Comer wrote in a letter addressed to Cheatle.
The letter continued, “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. Despite allowing you to speak with the media, both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Secret Service have failed to provide assurances regarding your appearance at the Oversight Committee’s scheduled hearing, thereby necessitating the attached subpoena.”
