Tipsheet

Lawmakers Visit Site of Trump Assassination Attempt Before the Secret Service Director

Spencer Brown
Spencer Brown  |  July 22, 2024 2:30 PM

While United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was before the House Oversight Committee on Monday feebly attempting to defend her job leading the agency responsible for keeping presidents from getting shot in the face, other lawmakers were in Butler, Pennsylvania, at the site of the July 13 attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. 

Members of Congress traveled with the House Homeland Security Committee to the site of the near assassination to survey the scene as investigators from a handful of federal agencies continue their probe of the events leading up to the moment when the would-be assassin fired into the Trump rally — wounding Trump, killing attendee Corey Comperatore, and critically wounding two other rally goers. 

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) — who also serves as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — was among the lawmakers making the trip to Pennsylvania to survey the scene, including the rooftop from which the would-be assassin launched his attack. 

As McCaul noted in a post on X from the "harrowing" scene, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has not yet visited the rally site-turned-crime scene in the nine days — a fact she admitted in Monday's congressional hearing back in D.C. — since the assassination attempt. She did, however, have time to show up at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee where she scurried away from GOP lawmakers while refusing to answer their questions.

Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ), a former Navy SEAL sniper, was among the lawmakers visiting Butler on Monday. He said that his visit made it "clear" that "many security measures were dropped" making Trump "extremely vulnerable" once he took the stage on July 13.

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Noting his ability to get up on the roof used by the would-be assassin to shoot at Trump and his supporters as a 70-year-old, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) said "anybody" would have been able to reach the vantage point — a swipe at Director Cheatle's claim that Secret Service agents were unable to secure the roof because it was sloped. 

Much like the general and bipartisan conclusion in Monday's Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) — chairman of the Homeland Security Committee — said while en route to the rally site that "Director Cheatle needs to step down as the head of the Secret Service."