Johnson, Jeffries announce task force to investigate Trump assassination attempt

WASHINGTON (TND) — House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced they will be creating a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The group will have 13 members, made of seven Republicans and six Democrats, and will assess the security failures that allowed a shooter to fire on Trump from a rooftop around 150 years away.

“The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are shocking,” Johnson said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “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 announcement comes after Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was grilled by the House Oversight and Accountability for hours, frequently frustrating members of both parties with evasive answers and refusals to provide basic details about the shooting.

Cheatle is facing bipartisan pressure to resign over the agency’s failure to prevent the attack from happening. She resisted those calls, insisting she is the “right person” to lead the agency despite the attempt on Trump’s life being the “most significant operational failure” in decades.

Probes into Secret Service’s preparation for the event and the lapses that led to Trump being fired at are facing heavy scrutiny from the public, lawmakers and federal agencies.

Cheatle said Secret Service hopes to have its internal investigation completed in 60 days. A separate independent panel appointed by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is also reviewing the shooting and the department’s inspector general has started three investigations.

Several committees in both chambers of Congress have vowed to conduct full investigations with public reports and hearings as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have demanded answers.