House leaders are launching a bipartisan task force to probe the attempted assassination of Donald Trump — the day after the head of the Secret Service enraged lawmakers by refusing to answer key questions about the debacle.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Tuesday they are forming the group to find out how Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, could elude federal and local law enforcement and fire a bullet that came within an inch of killing Trump — and to ensure nothing similar ever happens again.
“The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are shocking,” Johnson and Jeffries said in a statement.
“In response to bipartisan demands for answers, we are announcing a House Task Force made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats to thoroughly investigate the matter,” they said.
“The task force will be empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and make certain such failures never happen again.”
The House is expected hold a vote on a resolution to establish the Trump assassination attempt task force.
Both Republicans and Democrats called for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation Monday after her abysmal hearing before the House Oversight Committee about the security lapses that led to the shooting at the former president’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
“On July 13, 2024, the United States Secret Service under your leadership failed to protect former President Donald Trump from an assassination attempt that took the life of Corey Comperatore and seriously injured at least two other people,” Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote to Cheatle in a letter after the hearing.
“Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures,” they said.
“In the middle of a presidential election, the Committee and the American people demand serious institutional accountability and transparency that you are not providing.
“We call on you to resign as Director as a first step to allowing new leadership to swiftly address this crisis and rebuild the trust of a truly concerned Congress and the American people,” the letter said.
Cheatle admitted in her opening statement that the Secret Service “failed” its “solemn mission” that day and that she took “full responsibility for any security lapse” — but then refused to resign and even gave agents on the ground at the campaign event an “A” grade.
She also acknowledged that Crooks’ perch on top of the AGR International Inc. building — with a clear line of sight just 130 yards from the main stage of the Butler Farm Show grounds — was flagged as a “vulnerability” before the rally.
She added that the Secret Service had labeled the shooter “suspicious” as he roamed the grounds with a rangefinder scope — but still allowed Trump to take the stage.
Crooks was declared a “threat” just seconds before he opened fire from his perch on the manufacturing facility, she also confirmed.
At the same time, Cheatle clung to defenses that the building was “outside the perimeter” of authorities’ security footprint and had a “sloped roof” that made it unsafe for agents — despite revealing later that there was no policy mandating this.
“You can build a ramp for a wheelchair on a 112 [degree] roof,” Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) exploded at the Secret Service chief.
“You should be fired immediately and go back to guarding Doritos!” he fumed, apparently referencing her previous time at the helm of global security for PepsiCo, which owns Doritos.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General are both investigating the near-catastrophic security failures that brought Trump, 78, within an inch of death.
The House Homeland Security Committee was kicking off a hearing Tuesday to hear from Pennsylvania law enforcement officials and has subpoenaed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for further documentation.
The last bipartisan House task force was set up in February to address the alarming rise of artificial intelligence.