House Speaker Mike Johnson calls on Secret Service director to resign after assassination attempt on Trump

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson and other top Republicans are calling for the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, days after a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.

“I’m going to ask for your resignation,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said Wednesday during an appearance on Fox News at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. “Look, I think it’s inexcusable. … Her explanation to the media that the roof was slanted, which was a safety issue, doesn’t hold up. And I think she’s shown what her priorities are.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican and Johnson’s top lieutenant, called on Cheatle to resign on Tuesday.

Johnson’s call for resignation comes just hours before top law enforcement officials are set to brief House and Senate lawmakers in separate, unclassified virtual meetings on Saturday’s shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, shot Trump as he addressed rally attendees. One bystander was killed and two were seriously injured. Trump was shot in the right ear.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Director Paul Abbate and Deputy Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe are listed as speakers. Cheatle is not listed as a speaker for the House, but is listed as a speaker for the Senate.

The House Oversight Committee said it plans to subpoena Cheatle if she refuses to appear Monday at a public hearing focused on the security breach.

In the Fox News interview, Johnson also said he would create a special House task force to investigate the shooting and security failures when lawmakers return Monday, an effort aimed at streamlining multiple congressional investigations.

“The reason we’re going to do it this way is it’s a more precise strike. It’s faster, there’s not a lot of procedural hurdles, and the task force will also have subpoena power,” Johnson said. “It’s going to be a mix of Republicans and Democrats to get to the bottom of this quickly so the American people can get the answers they deserve.”

Lawmakers have many questions about Saturday’s assassination attempt. Perhaps the biggest is why the roof of a building less than 500 feet from Trump was not secured by the Secret Service or local law enforcement. They also want to know why Secret Service snipers on another rooftop in the area did not engage the shooter before Crooks fired multiple shots.

Speaking to ABC News this week, Cheatle said she would not resign but said: “I am the one who takes responsibility. I am the director of the Secret Service.”

She said the Secret Service was responsible for securing the inner perimeter of the rally, while local law enforcement was responsible for securing the area outside the rally, which included the building Crooks accessed.

Cheatle has been inconsistent in her public statements. She told ABC News that local police were inside the building from which the shooter fired after gaining access to the roof. A Secret Service official later told NBC News on Wednesday that the local SWAT team was not in the building, but rather in another building in the same complex.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told NBC News on Wednesday that Cheatle was referring to the AGR Glass “building,” a large industrial complex with interconnected housing.

This raises new questions about the level of planning and communication between the Secret Service and local law enforcement and whether the local team was best positioned to secure the outer perimeter or whether the local sniper team could have had an even better view of the rooftop used by the shooter if they were in a building that overlooked the roof.