House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle made false statements to him about the FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. According to Green, Cheatle told him the FBI was prohibiting her from talking to her own people because of the ongoing investigation. When he asked the FBI, it said that was not true.
“She said that the FBI had constrained her from, you know, talking to her own people because it was an active investigation. I talked to the deputy director of the FBI and he said that wasn’t true,” Green said.
Green did not say Cheatle lied, he said she made a false statement according to the FBI.
This type of discrepancy is exactly what House leadership wants to clear up with a new bipartisan task force. Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced the chamber will vote to approve an investigative panel during the week of July 21.
However, Green said his committee should be the one taking the lead because it has jurisdiction over the Secret Service. He added there’s no reason for there to be a task force because it could be duplicative with his committee.
“We’re the authorizers for Secret Service. We know everything about it,” Green said.
Green said his committee will look into other angles of the incident even if the task force is approved.
The task force will be comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats, and it will have subpoena power. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said he applied to be a member.
“We need a committee solely focused on what the specific failures were and how we fix them,” Moskowitz said. “After the shooting in my hometown in Parkland, at my high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, we established the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Commission to find out what failed that day. There were obvious failures, but behind the scenes, what failed that day. How did that happen? We need to do the same thing here.”
Cheatle resigned Tuesday morning after bipartisan calls for her to do so. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they agreed with her decision and wished her the best in her future endeavors.
