The House task force, currently investigating the attempted assassinations of former President Donald Trump, experienced a significant divide during its first hearing on Thursday.
Democratic members of the panel were noticeably absent during the final segment of the hearing, which featured testimonies from two Republican representatives conducting their own independent investigation into the incident.
Representatives Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and Cory Mills, R-Fla., both military veterans, participated in the latter part of the hearing. However, this move sparked discontent among the Democratic minority, who claimed their leadership was not informed of Crane and Mills' testimonies until late Wednesday afternoon, according to Fox News sources. Some Democratic lawmakers were reportedly not informed until Thursday morning.
This unexpected development marked the first significant partisan divide in what has been a united effort to investigate the incident thus far.
"We did not receive notice of the second panel until late yesterday. We didn't have an opportunity to present our own witnesses," said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., the ranking Democrat on the panel. Despite the frustration, Crow emphasized that the task force's bipartisan mission remains intact. "[Task Force Chairman Mike Kelly, R-Pa.] and I are still very committed to having this be bipartisan, consensus-based, and it's my hope that we can return to that approach going forward."
Kelly echoed Crow's sentiments, assuring reporters that the task force's bipartisan mission would not be hindered. He justified inviting Mills and Crane to testify due to their expertise, particularly their assessment of the security perimeter for the rally. Kelly dismissed the Democrats' absence during their portion of the hearing, suggesting that some members may have had flights out of Washington, D.C.
The first part of the hearing saw testimonies from a former Secret Service agent and local and state law enforcement officials who were present at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. This rally was the scene of the assassination attempt on Trump, where one attendee was killed, and Trump himself was shot in the ear.
Witnesses and lawmakers repeatedly pointed to a lack of clear communication of security plans from the Secret Service as a contributing factor to the incident. This communication failure allowed 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, to open fire on the rally from a rooftop just outside the security perimeter.
"In the days leading up to the rally, it was not a single mistake that allowed Crooks to outmaneuver one of our countrys most elite group of security professionals. There were security failures on multiple fronts," Kelly stated.
Crow agreed, stating, "The communication between the Secret Service and local and state partners was disjointed and unclear. It was the fault of the Secret Service, because the Secret Service is ultimately responsible for the protection at events like that. They did not do their job. They did not provide the clarity and the guidance to local law enforcement. That was pretty clear to me."
One of the key questions raised during the hearing was why there were no law enforcement personnel on top of the AGR building, where Crooks eventually climbed up and took his shots. This building was in close proximity to the rally stage and provided a clear line of sight to Trump.
"A 10-year-old looking at that satellite image could have seen that the greatest threat posed to the president that day" was the building near the stage, said Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas.
The panel, consisting of seven Republicans and six Democrats, has spent the last two months analyzing the security failures at the rally. They have conducted nearly two dozen interviews with law enforcement and received more than 2,800 pages of documents from the Secret Service.
An interim report released Wednesday from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is also conducting an investigation, criticized the Secret Service for failing to give clear instructions on how state and local officials should cover the building where the gunman eventually took up position. The report also stated that the agency didnt ensure real-time information sharing with local partners.
As the investigation continues, multiple lawmakers have expressed their desire to hear from Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe again, especially after Congress recently allocated $230 million in additional funding for the agency.
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