The Department of Homeland Security inspector general opened an investigation on Wednesday into the Secret Service’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at Saturday’s Pennsylvania rally.
The objective of the probe is to “Evaluate the United States Secret Service’s (Secret Service) process for securing former President Trump’s July 13, 2024 campaign event,” according to a short notice posted to the inspector general’s website. No specific date was given for when the investigation was launched.
The newly launched investigation comes after President Joe Biden had directed the Secret Service to conduct an independent review of its security lapses at the rally in Butler, Pa. Under scrutiny for failing to prevent the shooting, Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle will testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee hearing next Monday.
The House Homeland Security Committee has also invited Cheatle, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and FBI director Christopher Wray to testify at a public hearing next Tuesday.
While the Secret Service chief confirmed she plans to attend the Monday hearing, House Oversight chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) will subpoena Cheatle, a spokesperson for the panel previously told National Review. The subpoena is designed “to head off any attempt by DHS to backtrack on her appearance,” the spokesperson said, after DHS “took over communications” with the committee and refused to confirm a briefing time that was previously scheduled for Tuesday.
The House Intelligence Committee and Senate Homeland Security Committee are also spearheading investigations into law enforcement’s security failures at Trump’s campaign event over the weekend.
The failed assassination attempt raised questions about how the shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was able to climb onto a roof of a nearby building outside the Trump rally with numerous police officers and thousands of spectators in the vicinity. Though the gunman was immediately killed after he shot the former president in the right ear, a Secret Service sniper already had his sights set on Crooks before the shooting.
To explain how her agency failed to secure the rooftop where the shooter positioned himself, the embattled Secret Service director said in an ABC News interview on Monday that the building “has a sloped roof, at its highest point,” citing safety concerns for the agents.
“And so, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” she said. “And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”
Despite facing widespread criticism and calls to resign, Cheatle refuses to step down from the role. She argued that the Secret Service was responsible for securing the inner perimeter and local police officers were responsible for securing the outer perimeter, which encompassed the building that Crooks shot from.
“In this particular instance, we did share support for that particular site and that the Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter,” she told ABC News. “And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter. There was local police in that building — there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.”