MILWAUKEE — The embattled U.S. Secret Service chief can run, but she can’t hide from the agency’s fatal failures leading up to and in the moment of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., tells me that there must be consequences if Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle doesn’t appear Monday before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee as ordered.
“She’s subpoenaed, and I would say if she does not show up, we bring her in — by force if necessary,” said Burchett, a member of the Oversight Committee.
Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday issued the subpoena to the recalcitrant Secret Service director.
“Americans demand accountability and transparency about the Secret Service’s failures that led to the attempted assassination of President Trump, but they aren’t getting that from President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security,” Comer said in a statement. “We have many questions for Director Cheatle about the Secret Service’s historic failure and she must appear before the House Oversight Committee next week.”
But the Biden administration hasn’t been good at obeying congressional subpoenas, even as the Justice Department goes about throwing conservatives in jail for doing the same. (See former Trump aide Peter Navarro and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.)
‘You’re Supposed to Protect the President’
Cheatle has refused to step down as Republicans demand that Biden fire the evasive security chief. Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said he was “prepared” to call on the president to sack Cheatle.
Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., confronted Cheatle Wednesday evening while she was on-site at the Republican National Convention in downtown Milwaukee. She refused to answer the questions of the senators, who surrounded her outside a hospitality suite at the Fiserv Forum. At one point, as caught on a video that has since gone viral, Cheatle and others turn from the senators and briskly walk away. The senators follow behind the Secret Service director, with Cramer catching up to her and telling her, “You answer to us.”
“There’s no shame. There’s no concern. You’re supposed to protect the president of the United States,” Barrasso says on the video.
Republican lawmakers were furious following a briefing from Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Cheatle and Wray provided senators a timeline that remarkably revealed that Secret Service sharpshooters first saw the gunman on the slanted rooftop 20 minutes before the moment he attempted to murder Trump, law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Shattered Faith
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., whose swing state is hosting this week’s Republican National Convention, told me that only four lawmakers were allowed to pose questions, without follow-ups. He said the limited session was filled with “gobbledygook” and “bureaucratic B.S.”
“The director admitted that there were mistakes and gaffes. They went through a timeline but glossed over the shooting. They didn’t provide any detail in terms of when they found out about the shooter,” Johnson said Thursday between convention speeches.
He’s very concerned the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the committee that he chaired before Democrats took control of the Senate in 2021, will do nothing to get answers and hold Biden administration officials accountable. Johnson said if he were chairman, he’d be calling in Secret Service agents at the scene, particularly the snipers.
“I’d interview them and transcribe their testimony immediately before memories fade,” he said. “We need to do that. We need independence on this. I have no power to do it, and that’s frustrating to me having been chairman.”
Mark Morgan, former acting head of Customs and Border Protection in the Trump administration, is calling for the creation of a bipartisan commission to look into the assassination attempt. He told Fox News Digital that the public has lost trust in federal agencies.
“Here’s the reality that we have to face for those of us who were past and even those that are currently involved in these agencies. … America’s trust in the Department of Justice, the FBI, Congress, it has dropped precipitously the past few years. That’s just the reality,” Morgan, who served 20 years with the FBI, told the news outlet this week. Biden has ordered an “independent” investigation. His FBI also is investigating.
Morgan said he’d like to see Johnson lead the independent commission.
Burchett said he’s not holding his breath that Cheatle will show up to Monday’s Oversight Committee hearing. If she does, he’s doubtful the Secret Service director will answer questions.
“If she had any integrity whatsoever, she would resign,” Johnson said.
