Exclusive: Rep. Eli Klain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy SEAL, is concerned the bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempt of former President Trump is lacking a key element: experience.
“I reached out to the speaker and I took the initiative to remind the speaker that I am one of the snipers in Congress. There are only three snipers. So it’s clearly not me,” Klain said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“I think there are three. For myself, [Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., and Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas]”If any of us had been on the committee, it would have at least shown that we were trying to bring a range of experience to the committee. But that didn’t happen.”
Klain argued that someone with his level of experience was needed given the circumstances of the incident, in which a 20-year-old shooter fired an AR-type rifle at Trump from 400 to 500 feet away before being shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.
District Attorney Butler said local snipers were not responsible for the rooftop shooter.
Rep. Eli Klain spoke to Fox News Digital about the bipartisan House Select Committee investigating the assassination attempt on former President Trump. (Getty Images)
“I’m a former Navy SEAL sniper. NSW, Naval Special Warfare sniper to be exact. I graduated from sniper school in 2009 and I’ve also attended several other advanced sniper schools. And the reason that’s important is because, obviously, the suspect that tried to kill the president shot the president and received training before he shot the president,” Mr Crane said.
“You’re dealing with a countersniper team. You’re dealing with someone who can show you the work that’s been done beforehand, the angles, the trajectories, all the things that a sniper has to be adept at and experience. So in this particular case, I think it makes sense to want someone with that background and experience on the task force.”
The task force, made up of six Democrats and seven Republicans, was announced by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, after the House passed the commission unanimously.
Klain and Mills are aiming to launch parallel investigations to fill gaps in the existing task force, Mills suggested on X on Monday.
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Rep. Corey Mills has announced he wants to launch a parallel investigation. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“I [the] “The Task Force has worked well and we believe the time has come for a parallel independent investigation by subject matter experts (SMEs) and whistleblowers who have already come forward,” Mills wrote, adding that he and Crane have already heard from people from those groups.
The current task force is led by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pennsylvania), a native of the area where the shooting occurred and with close ties to the local police who were in charge of security on the day, and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a retired Army Ranger with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The committee includes several other veterans, including Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.), Rep. Mike Walz (R-Fla.) and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), as well as legal experts such as Crow, an attorney, and Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a former assistant district attorney.
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But both Mills and Klain accused House members of being politically motivated in selecting the task force.
“I think some of the most qualified people were obviously left out of it. So, like a lot of things in Washington, there was a lot of politics involved in the formation of that task force,” Klain said.
He said “several other” and “fairly impressive” lawmakers had similar concerns.
Jeffries, Johnson, Kelly and Crow have all stressed that the investigation remains separate from politics, with Crow telling Fox News Digital earlier this week that the investigation will be “thorough and serious.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are leading the task force as a bipartisan effort. (Getty Images)
Jeffries’ office declined to comment when contacted by Fox News Digital, while Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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Asked whether he was concerned that launching an independent Republican-led investigation could itself be seen as political, Klain said: “I’m not too worried about that, but can it be done? Absolutely.”
But Walz, the committee member, told Fox News Digital he isn’t worried that either investigation will politicize the other.
“If we have people who are willing to bring in people like Rep. Corey Mills, who is going to rely on his expertise as a former sniper, or Rep. Eli Klain, who is a former Navy SEAL sniper, then we should leverage their expertise,” Walz said. “If they want to bring in outside experts from their own networks, I think that’s a holistic approach. So the more eyes that are on this, the better.”
