A Republican-led House committee has called on senior federal law enforcement officials at the Secret Service, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security to testify on Capitol Hill next week as part of the panel’s investigation into the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, invited DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify before the panel on July 23 as part of the body’s examination of the circumstances surrounding the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday.
“The American people want answers on what happened Saturday in Pennsylvania,” Green said in a statement issued Tuesday morning. “Secretary Mayorkas and Director Cheatle are responsible for the department and the agency charged with securing our homeland and protecting our nation’s chief executives and candidates, while Director Wray leads the agency with the vital responsibility of investigating this attempted assassination.
“It is imperative that we partner to understand what went wrong, and how Congress can work with the departments and agencies to ensure this never happens again,” Green said. “Successful oversight requires Congress to work together with these officials as they testify publicly before the House Committee on Homeland Security. The American people, and the individuals and families who receive protective services, deserve nothing less.”
Green has asked Mayorkas, whom the House impeached earlier this year for action related to the security of the southern border, to provide lawmakers with the Secret Service’s security plan for how it had planned to secure the perimeter of the venue where Trump rallied supporters Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The FBI is the lead investigating agency, while the Secret Service is responsible for protecting Trump. The FBI is housed under the Justice Department, while the Secret Service is under the DHS.
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Mayorkas was also pushed to supply lawmakers with communications between the DHS and White House related to staffing of the Secret Service on Trump’s security detail and documents regarding how senior law enforcement officials planned to tell President Joe Biden about the assassination attempt.
Green spoke Monday afternoon with a senior FBI official and learned that the FBI “so far has conducted nearly 100 interviews” since becoming the lead investigative agency. The agency had also gained access to the cellphone belonging to the suspected gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
