A House panel investigating the attempts on former President Donald Trump‘s life is set to hold its first public hearing on Thursday as the Secret Service faces intense congressional scrutiny over the incidents.
The bipartisan panel of seven Republicans and six Democrats will unveil its findings after two months of investigatory activity that included gathering thousands of pages of documents and conducting nearly two dozen closed-door interviews.
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), chairman of the task force, told reporters the hearing would be “a little bit different than what you’ve heard” because of the different perspectives he plans to showcase at it.
“I don’t think it’s going to be shocking or anything like that. I think it’s just going to give you more of an update of where we are,” Kelly said, pointing to planned testimony from five witnesses.
Kelly’s remarks come amid intent interest over the Secret Service’s historic security failure on July 13, when a gunman was able to climb atop a nearby building and fire shots at a Trump rally crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooting left one dead, two injured, and Trump with a minor wound to his ear.
Those who plan to testify on Thursday include Sgt. Ed Lenz, who was working as a tactical commander for Butler County during the incident and had a front-row seat to the communication breakdowns that occurred between local and federal law enforcement.
The Secret Service, for its part, has already admitted to the security lapses, and its former director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned as a result of them.
Stunning details about the disjointed security setup at the rally also emerged this week in a Senate report that showed text messages of law enforcement attempting to relay to each other that there was a suspicious person with a rangefinder roaming around the rally. The texts included photos of the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, well before the shooting began.
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The task force also invited as witnesses two local and state police officers, a former Secret Service agent, and Ariel Goldschmidt, the Allegheny County medical examiner.
While the task force is also now investigating a second alleged assassination attempt on Trump that occurred while the former president was golfing in Florida this month, the hearing is expected to focus mainly on the incident in Pennsylvania.
The hearing is set to begin at 9:30 a.m.
