House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Thursday called on President Joe Biden to fire Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle because of security breakdowns in the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump last weekend in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Johnson on Wednesday called on Cheatle to resign and announced that a bipartisan special task force with subpoena authority will be created Monday to investigate the shooting and the security failures that preceded the attack.
"We organized a call yesterday for all House members: Republican and Democrats," Johnson told Fox Business on Thursday, according to excerpts shared by his office. "We had most of them on the call. We had the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and we had Director Cheatle, Secret Service. They did not give us satisfactory answers to some very important questions. And some of it needs to be in a classified setting, I suppose.
"But I'm prepared to call on President Biden to fire to Director Cheatle. Yesterday, I said that she should resign. It's clear that she has no intention to do so. But the oversight here — the mistakes, the ineptitude, whatever it is — was inexcusable. We almost lost the life of a former president. And I think there has to be accountability, and it begins at the top. This is ridiculous."
In the days since the shooting, the Secret Service has come under intense scrutiny for its response. Cheatle has been subpoenaed to testify in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and other congressional committees are investigating.
Cheatle reportedly said that because the roof was sloped, Secret Service agents weren't stationed on the roof of the building where the suspected gunman, Thomas Matthews Crooks, 20, shot at the former president from about 130 yards away. There also are reports that 20 minutes passed between the time Secret Service snipers first spotted Crooks on the rooftop and the time shots were fired.
An attendee at the rally where Trump spoke was killed, two others were injured, and Trump's right ear was grazed by a bullet fired by Crooks, who was gunned down by a Secret Service sniper.
"I had [Alejandro Mayorkas] on the phone within hours of the event last Saturday because the buck stops at his desk, ultimately, Homeland Security director," Johnson said. "He did not have a lot of information, some very important facts that he should have had in front of him before he talked to the speaker of the House about this.
"What we'll do with this task force is go and get those answers from Mayorkas, from Cheatle, and everybody involved. The FBI is investigating the shooter and whether he acted alone or was in concert with anyone; so far, it looks to be that he acted alone. That's what they told us in the call, the unclassified part yesterday. But there's so many more questions than there are answers right now, and it's very frustrating to us. And it is dangerous. It's a dangerous thing. We have got to get accountability."