Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) accused Alejandro Mayorkas’ agency of obstructing the House’s investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Cloud expressed concerns over the lack of transparency and interference from the Department of Homeland Security in the investigation, highlighting the need for accountability and clarity.
“It is very concerning that right off the bat, we see DHS [Mayorkas’ Department of Homeland Security] obfuscating as opposed to being transparent. This should be something that, regardless of party, we don’t allow this kind of thing in our country,” Cloud said.
President Joe Biden selected a sociology graduate to run the U.S. Secret Service.https://t.co/NU1uxNecnR
— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) July 16, 2024
“We were scheduled for a first briefing today, just on the facts of the case, what’s going on, what they know now, and DHS has stepped in between the communications now of the Secret Service and the Oversight Committee, and are now trying to control the communication between the two committees,” Cloud said.
Cloud added, “So Chairman Comer is issuing subpoenas to make sure that the Secret Service director does appear [at a hearing]. Right now, we have a committee scheduled for the day we go back next week, on Monday, to make sure that she does appear and that we are being able to begin this investigation.”
“Already they’re obfuscating it, it would seem,” Cloud said.
Despite DHS efforts to control communication between committees, Cloud emphasized the importance of a thorough investigation and stressed the need for the Secret Service director to appear before the committee.
Cloud also called for accountability and raised questions about the administration’s failures in protecting political figures.
“We should be able to get that preliminary information out, realizing that, okay, this is going to take more than one briefing … But you know, this is coming from the same administration who was labeling Catholics as terrorists, people who go to school board meetings as terrorists, yet they fail to protect a former president of the United States and a political opponent. We’ve seen this administration target political opponents before, and then now fail epically in protecting a former president — and we will say, future — President of the United States. And so this is extremely concerning.”
“I’ll say this right off the bat: [With] any failure like this of the Secret Service … the honorable thing [for the director] to do is to resign at this point. She’ll talk about, ‘Well, we need to make sure this never happens again.’ That’s not the job description. The job description is to make sure that this never happens, period.We got to take the ‘again’ out of that. You should not get two assassination attempts under your belt as director of the Secret Service.”
“So we’re going to have to continue to look into this as the information becomes available,” Cloud said.
Mayorkas expressed support for Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle, despite revelations about security lapses in the incident, which has further complicated the situation.
“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point,” Cheatle said. “And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof … [so] the decision was made to secure the building from inside,” she said in a segment released on Tuesday.
“Do you anticipate people losing jobs over last weekend?” Mayorkas was asked.
“I have 100% confidence in the director of the United States Secret Service, a dedicated, career-long law enforcement officer,” Mayorkas said.
