The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, despite her previously-agreed July 22nd testimony.
Republican Oversight Chairman James Comer cited conflict with the Department of Homeland Security for prompting the issue of the subpoena.
“The Secret Service committed to your attendance. Subsequently, however, DHS officials appear to have intervened and your attendance is now in question,” Comer said in a letter to Cheatle, per the Hill. “The lack of transparency and failure to cooperate with the Committee on this pressing matter by both DHS and the Secret Service further calls into question your ability to lead the Secret Service and necessitates the attached subpoena compelling your appearance before the Oversight Committee.”
The House GOP’s belief that Cheatle wouldn’t show was seemingly unfounded, with speaker Mike Johnson citing “rumblings” in a Fox News interview.
Despite some wild conspiracy theories, the most widely accepted explanation for the ease with which the attempt on Trump’s life was able to take place is that the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners made a series of crucial security missteps, leaving the rooftop where Thomas Matthew Crooks fired shots at the former president unsecured.
Unable to politicize the shooter after evidence points to Crooks’ conservative ideology and lack of concrete motive, Republicans have rushed to blame the Secret Service’s “DEI” commitments, including the presence of female agents and administrators on the field and in leadership positions, for the shooting.
Secret Service agents killed Crooks during the attempt, but not before the former president could be shot in the ear, prompting President Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to announce a review of security procedures and additional protection on Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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