On Monday, the House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, along with the other Oversight Committee Republicans, filed an extensive documents request for communications and documentation around the Saturday, July 13th's Donald Trump rally and assassination attempt.
🚨BREAKING🚨
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 15, 2024
Chairman James Comer and Committee Republicans have sent a letter to U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle requesting the following information be produced no later than this Thursday, July 18, 2024:
- A complete list of all law enforcement personnel,… pic.twitter.com/QnkXXLxtYx
Among some of the documents requested are:
- All documents and communications related to the Secret Service protection for President Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, including but not limited to any pre-site survey identifying security concerns and/or mitigation of security concerns and monthly Office of Protective Operations reports;
The pre-site survey, presumably, includes an assessment of the grounds, the buildings, and possible fields of fire into and out of where the former president would be speaking, along with any ingress and egress points and high-speed avenues of approach. The shooter was able to approach within rifle range and set up on a rooftop without police or Secret Service intervention. It's unclear what survey work was done or how this location was not covered.
- All documents and communications, including text messages and email communications, between Secret Service and local law enforcement related to President Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024;
It is unclear as to what organization had responsibility for what area. The rooftop that the would-be assassin fired from, however, would have been assigned to either the Secret Service or local law enforcement, although there appears to have been some delay in responding to repeated calls from local citizens on the scene who saw the gunman on the roof.
- All maps, aerial views, diagrams, and assessments in the possession or custody of the Secret Service of the setting for President Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024.
Again, this would be useful in determining if any work had been done to determine fields of fire and so on.
See Related: Disturbing Questions Emerge: Secret Service Knew Rooftop Was a Vulnerability—Why Wasn't It Protected?
The Committee has also requested U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify on this matter on Monday, July 22nd.
🚨BREAKING🚨@RepJamesComer has invited U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing on Monday, July 22.
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 14, 2024
Americans demand answers about the assassination attempt of President Trump. pic.twitter.com/zKia2oIxCf
"Invited" may be too polite a word when the actual X post publicizing the invitation includes the phrase, "Americans demand answers," which is, frankly, true.
The investigation into this incident will take some time and will likely extend past the inauguration of the next president in January, at which point it would not be at all surprising to see some changes in the personnel in charge of both DHS and the Secret Service. This is, of course, what the Oversight Committee is constituted to do; the primary purpose of this Secret Service detail was to protect a former president of the United States. That purpose was not successfully carried out. Finding out what went wrong, who made the wrong decisions, and the root causes of the failure must be established to prevent anything like this from happening again; these requests are but a first step in that process.
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