OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that President Joe Biden should remove Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in light of the security lapse that led to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump during a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend.
Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray “did not give us satisfactory answers to some very important questions” during a call for all House members on Wednesday. I guess part of it has to be done in a classified atmosphere as well,” Johnson stated in a Fox Business interview.
“But I’m prepared this morning to call on President Biden to fire Director Cheatle,” he continued. “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.”
“We almost lost the life of a former president,” Johnson said in his conversation with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo in Milwaukee, where the Replication National Convention is taking place. “And I think there has to be accountability and it begins at the top. This is ridiculous.”
There are concerns regarding how the gunman, who has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, was able to scale a neighboring rooftop and start shooting at Trump with an AR-style rifle before the Secret Service could apprehend him.
Trump made it out alive, but his right ear was shot through. In addition, the gunman wounded two rallygoers and killed one more. According to reports, the gunman was shot and killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper from a different building while other staff members hurried to shield and take Trump off the stage.
WATCH:
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle recently said she has no intentions to step down.”
The statement added, “She deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these internal and external reviews.”
Cheatle is expected to appear at a public hearing next Monday after House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed the director, the panel said on Wednesday. And the House Homeland Committee is planning its own hearing with Pennsylvania state and local police.
Johnson said he spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “within hours” of the shooting “because the buck stops at his desk.” The speaker said Mayorkas “did not have a lot of information, some very important facts that he should have had in front of him.”
With the task force he vowed to establish, Johnson said lawmakers would get “answers” from “everybody involved.” He said there are “so many more questions than there are answers right now, and it’s very frustrating to us. And it is dangerous. … We have got to get accountability.”
Several law enforcement officials and lawmakers briefed on the matter said that law enforcement officials looking into the assassination attempt on Trump told lawmakers on Wednesday that there was a 20-minute lag between when U.S. Secret Service snipers first spotted the gunman on a rooftop and when shots were fired at the former president.
At 5:52 p.m. ET on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, officials stated that snipers had seen the suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, on the roof of a building outside the security zone of the gathering. Twenty minutes later, at 6:12 p.m. ET, the shooting took place, according to the sources, ABC News reported.
The Secret Service’s response to the attempted assassination has come under fire in the days following the gunshot, and Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the organization, has been summoned to testify before Congress. According to a Department of Homeland Security representative, she “welcomes the opportunity to testify.”
The chronology was made public after sources informed ABC News that Crooks looked up pictures of former President Trump and President Joe Biden on his phone. He also looked up the Trump rally dates in Butler and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Investigators attempted to ascertain Crooks’ motivation, as the phone search history did not indicate his political views.
The FBI director, his deputy director, and the head of the Secret Service all stated that 62 minutes before the shooting, lawmakers briefed law enforcement officials on Crooks’ status as a person of interest.
The timeline that was given in the briefing was as follows, via ABC News:
5:10 p.m. Crooks was first identified as a person of interest
5:30 p.m. Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder
5:52 p.m. The Secret Service spotted Crooks on the roof.
6:02 p.m. Trump takes the stage
6:12 p.m. Crooks fires first shots
“From the time Crooks fired his first shot to the gunman being killed, it was just 26 seconds, according to law enforcement officials. Eleven seconds after the first shot, Secret Service countersnipers acquired their target — and 15 seconds after that, Crooks was shot dead,” ABC News reported.
“Briefers told lawmakers that Crooks purchased an ammunition box at a Walmart on July 5, two days after the rally was announced. On July 13, he went to the rally site in the morning, was there for an hour, and then left. He came back sometime in the early 5 p.m. hour and tried to enter the security perimeter,” the outlet added.
ABC continued: “New analysis by ABC News’ visual verification team reveals that one of two sniper teams posted atop buildings to the north and south behind the rally stage repositioned before the first gunshots were fired. At 6:09 p.m., three minutes before the first gunshots rang out, the sniper team on the roof of the building south of the stage, the furthest away from the shooter’s location, repositioned, turning from the south to the north in the direction of the shooter’s location.”
Law police informed members that they believe neither of the shooter’s parents has significant political leanings, based on discussions with them.
200 interviews have been done as part of the probe, the FBI informed legislators, according to a source.
