Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R) suggested that the FBI is leaving Congress out of its investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
“Unfortunately, I think our Congressional investigations will very well end up in an FBI and Secret Service investigation. We’re not getting access to 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 Congress attempted to interview local, state and federal authorities about the failed July assassination attempt where a 20-year-old gunman hit Trump in the ear with a bullet. However, he said federal law enforcement agencies have “gone silent.”
“We have been going for four weeks since [the attempted] murder and there is basic information that we don’t know because the FBI, the Secret Service, are the law. So they think they are above the law. They don’t think they are accountable to the American public because they have never been held accountable to Congress and the American public,” he said.
Johnson added that Congress has not received the shooter’s autopsy results or much cooperation from federal authorities regarding the assassination attempt.
Johnson also stated that local authorities said one of their officers shot the shooter, but that the Secret Service has not acknowledged this fact or released any information related to it.
“That’s why we need to interview these shooters, because the acting director said the shooter only saw him a split second before he fired,” Johnson said. “It’s curious, isn’t it, that the acting director didn’t credit local police for firing a shot that could have deterred or ended his shooting.”
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the Secret Service for its role in providing security for Trump at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Republicans attacked former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle almost immediately after the shooting, and she resigned after a congressional hearing where she was unable to provide answers to most of lawmakers’ questions.
“She did the right thing. Yesterday’s performance was horrible. It was all secret and without service. And she hasn’t answered any of the questions that the American people have,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, told reporters after Cheatle’s testimony.
The Senate held a hearing with his successor, Acting Director Ronald Rowe, on July 30, which also left Republican lawmakers frustrated by the lack of answers to many of their questions.
The Secret Service acknowledged that there were security lapses at the event, and local authorities accused the Secret Service of “poor planning” and “poor communication.”
Republicans, led by Johnson, also questioned why the Secret Service did not have a person present on the roof from which the shooter shot Trump, and the Secret Service said it did not place a shooter on that roof because it was “slanted.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
