House GOP ramps up investigations into Trump assassination attempt

House Republicans are quickly ramping up their sprawling investigation into the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump — with a GOP chair scheduling a public hearing with a trio of top officials next week.

House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday invited Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray to testify about Saturday’s shooting before his panel on July 23.

“It is imperative that we partner to understand what went wrong, and how Congress can work with the departments and agencies to ensure this never happens again. Successful oversight requires Congress to work together with these officials as they testify publicly before the House Committee on Homeland Security,” Green said in a statement Tuesday.

Cheatle is already expected to appear before the House Oversight Committee the day before, and Wray is slated to testify before the House Judiciary Committee next week, an appearance that was on the books before Saturday’s shooting.

The House Homeland Security and Oversight committees are two of several congressional panels investigating Saturday’s shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. A swath of lawmakers, including Democrats, have questioned how the gunman was able to get on a roof roughly 200 yards from where Trump was speaking.

Cheatle is at the heart of the House GOP’s criticism. And on Tuesday she got a new high-profile Republican calling for her to step down: Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who said during an interview at the CNN-POLITICO Grill at the GOP convention that, “I've been very disappointed in her and her lack of candor.”

As lawmakers demand public appearances, some have also received private briefings from law enforcement and departments directly involved in Trump’s security. The FBI on Monday spoke with leading members of several committees, including House Homeland Security. Cheatle also spoke with Green over the weekend.

The FBI told Green and Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the panel, during a call on Monday that the bureau had at that point conducted nearly 100 interviews, and that the Secret Service was also reviewing its security protocols, a committee spokesperson told POLITICO. Green also wants to visit the scene of the shooting, if possible, after law enforcement has processed it, the spokesperson added.

The Senate will have an unclassified phone briefing about the shooting with the Justice Department, Secret Service and FBI on Wednesday afternoon, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's office announced Tuesday.

The Secret Service was expected to brief both the House Homeland Security and Oversight panels this week, but those plans appear to have been scrapped. A congressional source familiar with the plans said that DHS and the FBI were instead discussing holding an all-member House call instead of individual committee briefings.

But the refusal to pin down a time has infuriated Republicans, who accused the DHS of squashing closed-door briefings with the House committees.

“After the Secret Service agreed to brief members of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security took over communications with the Committee and has since refused to confirm a briefing time,” an Oversight Committee spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that while the Secret Service had confirmed Cheatle’s appearance for Monday that Comer will now issue a subpoena for her to attend “to head off any attempt by DHS to backtrack on her appearance.”

House Republicans have sent a flurry of letters to the Biden administration on the assassination attempt with multiple requests, including a list of law enforcement personnel involved in Trump’s rally and copies of internal documents and communications. They’ve also raised public questions about Trump’s security detail, and about general Secret Service procedures for handling threats.

Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on Tuesday that he wants to talk to Secret Service and other law enforcement that were on the ground at Saturday’s rally, and predicted that Wray will get swarmed with questions about the rally during his appearance next week.

Speaker Mike Johnson indicated that the Republican conference is compiling a list of questions they will soon send to Mayorkas. That will be a key indicator of the scope of possible GOP investigations.

But members of Johnson’s caucus are already floating their own ideas separate from the investigating committee chairs.

Members of his right flank, for example, are already using the fallout from the shooting to ramp up their criticism of the Secret Service’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — a program that was never popular with conservatives. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) led a group of House Republicans in rolling out legislation to prevent federal funds from going toward Cheatle’s salary.

“Saturday’s assassination attempt on President Trump’s life was either intentional or the result of gross incompetence by the United States Secret Service. Under Director Cheatle's failed leadership, the United States Secret Service has prioritized woke DEI policies over the core responsibilities of the Secret Service, including protecting our nation’s leaders,” Boebert said in a statement, indicating that she believed Cheatle should be fired.

On Tuesday , Boebert called for a select committee to investigate the shooting, while Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) is gathering support for forming an independent commission.