House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday he is going to urge Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Cheatle said Monday that she would not be stepping down from her position after her agency received backlash over potential security failures that led to Trump being wounded by a sniper’s bullet on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. Johnson on “America’s Newsroom” said he plans to call for Cheatle’s resignation because of the incident itself as well as her answers when facing questions from the media.(RELATED: Authorities Reportedly Spotted Trump’s Would-Be Assassin Nearly 30 Minutes Before He Opened Fire)
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Mike Johnson Says He’ll Call For Secret Service Director’s Resignation After Trump Assassination Attempt pic.twitter.com/Ncom1aWVkk
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“We are going to move quickly. I’ll be setting up on Monday a task force, a special task force within the House and the reason we’re going to do it that way is because that is a more precision strike,” Johson said. “It goes quicker. There’s not a lot of procedural hurdles and we’ll have subpoena authority for that task force as well. It’ll be compiled of Republicans and Democrats to get down to the bottom of this quickly so the American people can get the answers that they deserve. Since the assassination attempt, within hours I was on the phone with Secretary Mayorkas at Homeland Security. He did not have satisfactory answers at that time. I have since spoken to leaders at the FBI, Director of National Intelligence.”
“There’s real questions, let’s just put it that way. The answers have not been forthcoming,” he continued. “I think they’re gathering data. We’re going to do it as well. We have to have accountability for this. It was inexcusable. Obviously there were security lapses. You don’t have to be a special ops expert to understand that and we’re going to get down to the bottom of it quickly.”
Host Dana Perino asked if Johnson believes Cheatle should step down.
“I’m going to call for her resignation as well. Look, I think it’s inexcusable, just beyond the classified parts,” Johnson said. “The things that we all understand. Her explanation to the media that there was a slant on the roof so there was safety concerns? Come on. It doesn’t wash. And I think she’s shown where her priorities are.”
Security experts and former Secret Service agents told the Daily Caller News Foundation the sloped roof explanation does not make sense.
Peter Yachmetz, retired FBI agent and principal security consultant at Yachmetz Consulting Group, noted that the shooter was moving around on the “unsafe” roof prior to the assassination attempt.
“The slope didn’t affect him,” Yachmetz told the DCNF.
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