Senator James Lankford, pushed back after the Secret Service blamed local law enforcement for not sweeping the roof where former President Trump’s shooter, Thomas Crooks, was stationed.
As the lead Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee, Lankford discussed the Secret Service and FBI officials’ call with Senators on Wednesday in an interview with Fox News. He noted that officials leading the investigation into Trump’s assassination attempt tried to pass the blame to local law enforcement, claiming they were responsible for the “outer layer” where Crooks was positioned with an AR-15-style rifle.
“They talked about the layering – the Secret Service is the first layer, the second layer is federal law enforcement of multiple different agencies, and that third layer is local law enforcement,” Lankford explained. “We all know that as a structure of how things work on it. But then they try to say, hey, that was the outer layer. That’s really a local law enforcement issue.”
Lankford criticized this finger-pointing as a “mistake,” emphasizing that the Secret Service holds the ultimate responsibility for coordinating all law enforcement agencies. “The Secret Service has responsibility for coordinating all of those things together,” he said.
He revealed that Secret Service agents were aware of a “threat” 30 minutes before Trump took the stage. “They were made aware that there was an active search for someone that they thought was a threat,” Lankford said. “Well, at that point, they should never have allowed the president to step on that stage. They should have either figured out if the person was not a threat or picked him up. But they chose not to do that. And that has become very, very clear.”
Lankford indicated that elected officials are now seeking answers about who decided to let Trump proceed to the stage despite the known threat. “We’re trying to figure out who made that decision,” he said. “Why was that decision made the way that it was?”
He also called for the FBI and the Secret Service to provide a clear explanation of their mitigation strategy. “Explain to us the mitigation strategy,” he urged. “If there was someone that got on that roof, would they have been able to mitigate the threat? Obviously that didn’t occur, at least proactively.”
Lankford noted that U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle began the discussion by acknowledging the mistakes made by her team and expressing a commitment to transparency. “She started by saying, obviously we made mistakes,” Lankford said. “We made those mistakes, and we’re doing an internal investigation. We’re going to be forthcoming.”
However, despite Cheatle’s initial statement, Lankford pointed out that she only received a handful of questions and provided a timeline of the incident. “If the facts are not being shared, conspiracy theories run wild,” he warned. “There’s nothing to combat false information.”
This was firstly reported by Fox News.