GOP senators confront Secret Service chief at RNC after Trump shooting
A video show Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) aggressively confronting the head of the Secret Service at the Republican National Convention, just days after the assassination attempt against former President Trump put the agency under intense scrutiny.
“This was an assassination attempt. You owe the people answers. You owe President Trump answers,” Blackburn can be heard saying in the clip shared on X, in which she and her fellow senator appear to be following Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle through the halls of the convention in Milwaukee, Wisc.
In another video, Barrasso said he and Blackburn “went face-to-face” with Cheatle, “asking for specific answers about what happened with President Trump in Pennsylvania and how that shooter was able to get off a clear shot when the FBI and SS knew that there was a suspicious person an hour in advance of when the shooting occurred.”
Republicans are calling for the Secret Service leader’s resignation amid criticism about security at the rally on Saturday, where Trump was grazed on the ear by a bullet. One rally attendee was killed and two others were injured. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said he will create a congressional task force to consolidate investigations into the security failures around the rally.
“She would not answer our questions. She wanted to say it was not the time or place,” Blackburn said in her video with Barrasso. “But I’ve got a message for her: she can run, but she cannot hide.”
In a longer version of the clip, Cheatle can be heard saying that she doesn’t “think that this is the form to have this discussion,” and that the suite she was in was to “thank the partners that have helped secure the Republican National Convention, and I would not want to take away from their evening.”
Cheatle then appeared to exit the suite, followed by the senators up a flight of stairs.
“Continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident and U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has no intentions to step down,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Hill in a statement.
Guglielmi said Cheatle “deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews.”
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