The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on creating a bipartisan commission to investigate the assassination attempt on former President Trump during a campaign rally earlier this month.
House Republican leaders became aware of the bill late Sunday that would create an investigative committee made up of five Democrats and six Republicans.
A 20-year-old gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, killing one attendee and wounding two others. Trump himself was shot in the ear and escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents.
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Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was hurriedly escorted off the stage during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Since then, law enforcement’s response to the incident has come under intense scrutiny, with the director of the U.S. Secret Service in particular facing bipartisan pressure to resign.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) is the most senior elected official so far calling for Cheatle’s resignation. He told Fox News Digital at the Republican National Convention last week that he plans to assemble an investigative committee early this week and hopes to have answers soon.
“The idea of a task force is to have a precision group or unit that will immediately tackle this issue, that will be bipartisan and have subpoena power. I think that’s going to be really important to get answers as quickly as possible,” Johnson said Thursday.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, has pledged to set up a task force to investigate the shooting. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The bill is being sponsored by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pennsylvania), who was present at the time of the assassination attempt and represents the district where the rally took place.
The bill is set to be voted on under suspension of the rules, meaning it would avoid the usual procedural hurdles by raising the threshold for passage to two-thirds of Congress instead of a simple majority, but that’s not likely to be an issue for it to pass. The assassination attempt, and political violence in general, was widely condemned by lawmakers from both parties in the aftermath of the shooting.
Fox News Digital reached out to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to ask whether he supports creating the commission.
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Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is facing pressure to resign. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pennsylvania) became the first Democrat to call for Gov. Cheatle’s resignation over the weekend.
“In light of the shooting of a presidential candidate in western Pennsylvania last weekend, I call on Secretary Cheatle to resign immediately,” Boyle said in a statement Saturday.
“The evidence that has emerged demonstrates unacceptable operational failures,” he continued. “If Director Cheatle remains in his position, I have no confidence in the leadership of the United States Secret Service.”
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The news came as Cheatle was on Capitol Hill on Monday morning testifying before the House Oversight Committee, setting up what is expected to be a tense exchange between him and a committee that includes Trump allies such as Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
The investigation by House Republicans is ongoing, in addition to an independent investigation led by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the weekend.
