MILWAUKEE — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Wednesday he is evaluating all courses of action for a potential situation in which U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle refuses to resign , despite calls for her to step aside following this weekend’s shooting of former president Trump’s rally.
Johnson on Wednesday joined calls for Cheatle to resign following the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left the former president bloodied after a bullet hit his ear. One rally participant was killed.
Cheatle, however, told ABC News’ Pierre Thomas in an interview that aired Monday that she does not plan to resign, saying “I intend to continue.”
During an interview with The Hill on Wednesday, Johnson said he is considering all options if Cheatle remains defiant and refuses to resign from his position.
“We’re looking at all of those options right now,” Johnson said when asked if Congress has any recourse and if that includes impeachment.
“But the first thing is to form the task force to get to the real facts,” he continued. “And we will do it seriously and we announced this morning that we are working on it today.”
The comments came after Johnson said on Wednesday that Cheatle should resign and announced he would create a congressional task force to expedite investigations into the security breach surrounding the shooting.
“I’m also going to resign,” Johnson told Fox News. “I think it’s inexcusable.”
“We will move quickly. I will be setting up a task force on Monday, a special task force within the Chamber, and the reason we will do it this way is because it is a more precision attack,” he said at another point in the debate. the interview. “It’s faster, there aren’t many procedural obstacles and we will have the authority to subpoena this task force as well. It will be compiled by Republicans and Democrats to get to the bottom of this quickly so the American people can get the answers they deserve.”
At least six committees on Capitol Hill are investigating the weekend assassination attempt on Trump, most of which focus on the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
