Republican lawmakers are planning to return to Congress on Monday with the director of the Secret Service in their sights, as their frustration and anger grow over the agency’s response to an assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
First on the agenda will be a House committee hearing on Monday with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, which Speaker Mike Johnson said would make for “must-see TV” for Americans concerned about security lapses at the Pennsylvania rally.
“She’s got a lot to answer for. And these concerns are bipartisan,” Mr Johnson told CNN on Sunday.
Republicans, who control the House, have been unified in pushing Ms Cheatle to step down – or be fired – after a 20-year-old gunman was able to shoot the former president in the ear at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally last Saturday. Many of the lawmakers confronted her at the Republican convention last week, releasing videos of them demanding answers.
Her agency is charged with providing protection to more than the president and his family, including former presidents, others in line to the White House and political candidates.
US media is reporting that Trump had sought additional security in the months leading up to the assassination attempt, but the agency had turned them down or been unable to fulfill the requests due to staffing shortages. CBS News, BBC’s news partner, has reported that Trump’s security frustrations go back two years.
Agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that “in some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency made modifications”. That included relying on state and local law enforcement.
Eric Trump, the former president’s son, said he had been calling for beefed up security throughout the campaign, as he blamed the Biden administration and Ms Cheatle on Sunday for the assassination attempt and argued there had been “no accountability” for the agency’s actions.
“She should be out of a job,” he told Fox News.
Speaking to CNN, Mr Johnson said that in addition to the House hearing, lawmakers on Monday would release more details about a bipartisan task force with subpoena authority charged with investigating the Secret Service’s response.
“The initial excuses that [Ms Cheatle] has given for the lapses that happened last Saturday are just unbelievable, so we’re going to get down to the bottom of it,” he said.
Senators, too, are preparing to dig in on the Secret Service.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson told Fox News on Sunday that he would soon release “preliminary” information from his own report investigating the attack.
That report is intended to encourage people to come forward with more footage and firsthand accounts. He added that his investigation is now bipartisan, and will be conducted with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut.
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is also looking the attack, which occurred after the Secret Service identified the gunman as suspicious some 20 minutes before he opened fire, lawmakers revealed this weekend.
Mr Johnson’s appearance on CNN came just a day after reports emerged that top officials at the Secret Service had denied some requests from Trump’s security team for additional resources in the two years leading up to the assassination attempt.
The report, first published in the Washington Post, said the agency had refused additional resources such as more agents and snipers because of a lack of resources and staffing shortages within the Secret Service.
Mr Johnson blamed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for failing to allocate more resources to the Secret Service, an agency that it oversees.
The Republican House speaker told CNN on Sunday that Congress had increased funding to DHS in recent years, but that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was responsible for ensuring the Secret Service had enough funds.
“Secretary Mayorkas is in charge of that agency. If he needed to allocate more resources to the Secret Service than that should have been done,” Mr Johnson said.
Mr Johnson added that he had spoken with Mr Mayorkas hours after the assassination attempt and that the DHS leader was unable to answer “basic questions”, including whether the gunman, Thomas Crooks, had used a drone to survey the outdoor rally area.
Law enforcement officials told US media on Saturday that Crooks had flown a drone above the site ahead of the shooting.
Trump has made several appearances since the incident, including at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday, where he told the crowd that he “took a bullet for Democracy”.
His former White House physician, Dr Ronny Jackson, released a statement the same day saying the bullet created a 2cm-wide wound on Trump’s ear that was beginning to “heal properly”.