House Speaker Mike Johnson pledged to create a bipartisan task force to investigate
Speaker Johnson talks GOP momentum, Dems’ Biden woes, Trump rally shooting
Speaker Mike Johnson sat down with Fox News Digital for a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on establishing a bipartisan commission to study the attempted assassination of former President Trump during a campaign rally earlier this month.
House GOP leaders noticed a bill late Sunday that would create the investigative panel, which would be comprised of five Democrats and six Republicans.
A 20-year-old gunman opened fire at Trump's July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one attendee and injuring two others. Trump himself was shot in the ear and rushed offstage by Secret Service agents.
TRUMP SHOOTING: TIMELINE OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW GUNMAN EVADED SECURITY
Republican presidential candidate former President Trump is rushed offstage during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Law enforcement's handling of the situation has since faced a mountain of scrutiny, particularly the U.S. Secret Service, whose director is under bipartisan pressure to resign from her post.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is the highest ranking elected official so far who is calling for Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation. He told Fox News Digital last week during the Republican National Convention that he planned to assemble an investigatory panel early this week and hoped for answers soon.
"The idea of a task force is that we can have sort of a precision group or unit that goes to work on this immediately. It'll be bipartisan and will have subpoena authority. I think that's going to be very important to get the answers as quickly as possible," Johnson said on Thursday.
TOP REPUBLICAN WARNS OF 'RUDE AWAKENING' IF 'STONEWALLING' CONTINUES AS SECRET SERVICE FACES HEARING
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., promised to create a task force to study the shooting. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The legislation is led by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who was in attendance when the attempted assassination took place. He also represents the district where the rally was located.
The bill is slated to get a vote under suspension of the rules, meaning it will bypass normal procedural hurdles in exchange for raising the threshold for passage to two-thirds of the chamber instead of a simple majority. That likely will not be an issue for passage, however. The assassination attempt and political violence in general were widely condemned by members of both parties immediately in the shooting's wake.
Fox News Digital reached out to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to ask whether he supported the commission's creation.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is under pressure to resign. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., became the first Congressional Democrat to call for Cheatle to resign over the weekend.
"I am calling on Director Cheatle to resign immediately following last weekend’s shooting of a Presidential candidate in Western Pennsylvania," Boyle said in a statement on Saturday.
"The evidence coming to light has shown unacceptable operational failures," he continued. "I have no confidence in the leadership of the United States Secret Service if Director Cheatle chooses to remain in her position."
The news comes as Cheatle is testifying on Capitol Hill before the House Oversight Committee on Monday morning, in what is expected to be a tense back-and-forth between herself and a panel that houses top Trump allies like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
The House Republicans' probe is ongoing in addition to an independent review directed over the weekend by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
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