‘The Secret Service is fully accountable for the safety of its protectees,’ the agency said Friday.
The director of the Secret Service has agreed to testify at a House hearing investigating Saturday’s assassination attempt targeting former President Donald Trump.
A spokesman for the agency confirmed in a statement Friday that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will make the appearance before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, July 22, after its chairman requested her to appear.
“The Secret Service is fully accountable for the safety of its protectees,” the agency spokesman, Anthony Gugliemi, said in the statement, pledging “complete cooperation with Congress.”
“We are committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that it never happens again,” he added.
In a rare joint statement on Friday, House Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and ranking House Oversight member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote that Ms. Cheatle “must appear before the House Oversight Committee without delay” to answer their “many questions” and provide further transparency on the incident.
Earlier this week, the Republican-led Oversight Committee led by Mr. Comer’s office sent a subpoena to Ms. Cheatle to testify and she agreed to its demands.
In a letter to Ms. Cheatle attached to the subpoena, the chairman wrote that there have been “no meaningful updates” that have been handed to the Oversight Committee, alleging a “lack of transparency and failure to cooperate.”
The matter, he wrote to the director, “calls into question your ability to lead the Secret Service and necessitates the attached subpoena compelling your appearance before the Oversight Committee.”
On Wednesday, Ms. Cheatle and other U.S. officials held a briefing with senators on the assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left the 45th president with an injury to his ear, one person dead, and two people injured. The shooter, identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service sniper after he opened fire.
