Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., told Newsmax on Wednesday that the U.S. Secret Service must address the security failures leading up to the shooting at a rally held by former President Donald Trump on Saturday.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., announced Tuesday that the panel will issue a subpoena to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify before Congress about the unsuccessful attempt on Trump's life.
Smith told "National Report" that despite the subpoena, there is no guarantee that Cheatle will appear before the panel on Monday.
"And I can tell you in the numerous times that we have asked or subpoenaed members of President Biden's administration, a lot of times they just don't show up or they find another thing to do," Smith said, noting that the committee is "determined to get to the bottom of this breach with the Secret Service."
Smith said "it's absolutely unacceptable" that the shooter was able to climb "on top of a roof within 130 yards of the president," and lashed out at Cheatle for saying that "a sloped roof" prevented the agency from securing the building rooftop despite having identified it as a security vulnerability.
"She said that it was a safety risk because of a 40-degree slope in a roof," Smith said. "I think more roofs are sloped than they are flat. So it's kind of ridiculous. I think anyone can walk on a 40-degree slope on a roof, and the police snipers on the rooftop of a different building had a sloped roof."
Smith later said: "There's numerous things that we need answered, but we need to know why they believed that that should not have been included in the perimeter in guarding the president."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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