EXCLUSIVE: Speaker Johnson Sets Up ‘Special Task Force’ To Investigate Trump Assassination Attempt, ‘Serious Security Lapses’

MILWAUKEE—House Speaker Mike Johnson shared Wednesday that he is setting up a special task force to investigate the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

In an interview with The Daily Signal, Johnson, R-La., said he’s spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines; and the leadership of the FBI (though he specified that he has not spoken with FBI Director Christopher Wray directly).

“The answers that they are providing to us thus far are not satisfactory,” he said. “So I announced this morning that we are gonna set up a special task force, a precision strike on this, it will be a bipartisan investigatory group and they will have subpoena authority. We’re going to get down to the bottom of this quickly.”

He also called for the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, to resign.

“I think she needs to resign,” he said of Cheatle. “What happened there does not require a thorough investigation, we can all see just by what we’ve observed that there were serious security lapses. And her initial explanation that the roof was too slanted to provide security there, it just doesn’t wash.”

He emphasized that while the FBI’s investigation focuses on the shooter himself, it is the Secret Service itself that is in charge of the overall security, under the masthead of the Department of Homeland Security.

“Mayorkas has now taken the reins of that. We are hearing this morning that he is going to instruct Director Cheatle not to appear on Capitol Hill to answer the first round of questions. I hope that is not true. Our Oversight Committee and our Homeland Security committees appropriately acted quickly and issued notices for these hearings that would begin next Monday, but so far, they look to be unresponsive for that.”

Critics across the board have described the security breach at Trump’s Pennsylvania campaign rally as a “catastrophic failure” of the Secret Service. Countersnipers fatally shot the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, after one of his shots grazed the former president’s right ear, bloodying him.

Trump announced Monday that Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, was his vice presidential running mate. The former president made an appearance on Monday evening at the Republican National Convention, where he appeared serious and emotional as he greeted his sons as well as Tucker Carlson, Vance, and Johnson.