GOP senator seen confronting Secret Service director: Kimberly Cheatle 'has to go'
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) joined the chorus of those pressing Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
Barrasso and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) were seen aggressively confronting Cheatle at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Wednesday, just days after the shooting at a Trump campaign rally Saturday outside Pittsburgh. Cheatle and the Secret Service have been under intense scrutiny as questions swirl over why the gunman was able to get close enough to shoot at the former president.
In an interview Wednesday on NBC News Now, Barrasso discussed the conference call held earlier that day with Cheatle, FBI Director Christopher Wray and other officials.
“I participated in the whole thing. To me it was a cover your a-- briefing by the Secret Service," he told NBC's Hallie Jackson. "The director of the Secret Service needs to go."
“That shooter was identified as a suspect, suspicious character a full one hour before the shooting occurred, had a rangefinder, a backpack, and then they lost sight of him and never really followed up on that," he added. "This was an hour before."
Other Republican senators took to social media after the conference call to demonstrate their frustration over what was said, with many suggesting that not enough details were divulged about the incident. The senators were told the Secret Service had flagged the gunman as suspicious one hour before the shooting.
Barrasso said that he and other senators wanted to ask questions during the call but were not able to.
"And we had questions that we were gonna say, ‘Wait a second, what really happened there? Who's going to be held accountable? Who was in charge of that building? Why wasn't the roof scrutinized? How did all these things happen?'" he continued. "They didn't answer any of those questions for us."
The Wyoming Republican said it was “completely unsatisfying as a briefing” and said that they need to know how this could have happened.
“How could this have occurred? This close to the death of a former president, we didn't get any kind of satisfaction, time for the head of the Secret Service to go,” he said.
A gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire at the Butler, Pa., rally Saturday, grazing Trump's ear with a bullet. A rally attendee was killed and another two were critically injured.
Crooks was killed by a countersniper shortly after shooting toward the former president.
Cheatle said Tuesday that her agency was “solely responsible” for the security plan at the Pennsylvania rally. Now, GOP lawmakers are demanding answers from the Secret Service.
The director is expected to testify before the House Oversight Committee at some point this month over the incident.