Ron Johnson suggests FBI leaving Congress out of Trump shooting probe
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) suggested the FBI is leaving Congress out of its probe into the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
“Unfortunately, I think our congressional investigations will pretty well end up in an investigation of the FBI and Secret Service investigations. We’re not being given access to the individuals in a timely manner,” Johnson told radio host John Catsimatidis in a Sunday interview on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM.
Johnson said that Congress has tried to interview local, state, and federal law enforcement about the failed July assassination attempt where a 20-year-old gunman struck Trump in the ear with a bullet. However, he said the federal law enforcement agencies have “clammed up.”
“We are going four weeks since [the attempted] assassination and there are basic pieces of information we don’t know because the FBI, the Secret Service, they are the law. So they think they’re above the law. They don’t think they’re accountable to the American public because they’ve never been held accountable by Congress and the American public,” he said.
Johnson added that Congress had not received results of the autopsy of the shooter or much cooperation from federal authorities about the assassination attempt.
Johnson also claimed that local law enforcement said that one of their officers took a shot at the gunman but that the Secret Service has not acknowledged that fact or released any information related to it.
“That's why we need to interview those snipers, because the acting director said that the sniper didn't have him in his sights until a split second before he took the shot,” Johnson said. “It's curious, isn't it, that the acting director didn't credit local law enforcement at taking a shot that might have deterred or ended his shooting.”
Democrats and Republicans have both blasted the Secret Service for their role in providing security to Trump at the July 13 Butler, Pa., rally.
Republicans attacked former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle almost immediately after the shooting, and she resigned in the wake of a Congressional hearing where she failed to give answers to most questions from lawmakers.
“She did the right thing. Yesterday’s performance was awful. It was all secret and no service. And she answered none of the questions that the American people have,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, told reporters following Cheatle’s testimony.
The Senate held a hearing with her successor, Acting Director Ronald Rowe, on July 30, which also left Republican lawmakers frustrated over a lack of answers to many of their questions.
The Secret Service has acknowledged that there were security gaps at the event, and local law enforcement has accused the Secret Service of “poor planning” and “poor communication.”
Republicans, led by Johnson, have also questioned why the Secret Service did not have a person present on the roof from which the gunman shot at Trump, and the Secret Service has said that they did not place a sniper on that roof because it was “sloped.”