‘I’ve never seen this’: Top Republican details level of Secret Service ‘lack of cooperation’
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., described the level to which the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service have prevented the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) from obtaining crucial materials to investigate the failures that led to the assassination attempts against former President Trump.
“Things like the autopsy report, you know, the House has it under subpoena. We don’t have it,” he told reporters.
“[The] toxicology report; we don’t have any of the trajectory reports. So, where’d the bullets go? We don’t even know how they handled the crime scene,” said Johnson, ranking member of the HSGAC Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI).
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Sen. Ron Johnson, right, described the specific requests that have yet to produce results from the Secret Service and FBI. Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe is pictured on left. (Reuters)
The senator pointed to the amount of time that has passed since the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, noting, “There’s just basic information we should have right now, and we don’t have it.”
“We haven’t been able to interview the sniper who took out [Thomas] Crooks,” Johnson said. Crooks is the would-be assassin that, during the July 13 rally in Pennsylvania, opened fire, grazing the former president’s ear, killing a rally attendee and critically injuring two others.
According to the Republican, the sniper who shot Crooks was the first person he wanted to interview.
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Thomas Matthew Crooks (DJ Laughery (background))
Further, he said they hadn’t been provided any FD-302 forms by the FBI, which are used to investigate through results of interviews. Johnson pointed out that FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told him during a hearing in July that the bureau would provide the forms as soon as they could.
“I haven’t gotten one,” he said.
“They’ve done 1,000 interviews. We’ve done 12,” the senator said.
Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI Miami Field Office, Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. of the U.S. Secret Service, and Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office attend a press conference on Monday, the day after an apparent assassination attempt on former President Trump in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The Wisconsin Republican said the lack of information is consistent with slow-walking.
He also said that a recent briefing to the chairs and ranking members of both HSGAC and PSI from Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe did not provide the senators with any new information.
Johnson described that the few documents which had been provided to the lawmakers were “heavily redacted.”
“And in this case, unusually. I’ve never seen this,” he remarked of the redactions.
Former President Trump was injured during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Noting that it wasn’t his “first rodeo,” Johnson recalled that redactions are normally black, blocking out certain parts of text. “These are just whiteouts.”
“So, I don’t know. Was it just a single word?” he asked.
He said in some cases it wasn’t evident whether something had been obscured in the documents or not due to the white redactions.
“That’s the level of opacity that we’re getting in terms of their lack of cooperation with our investigation,” Johnson added.
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The Secret Service has reiterated that it is cooperating with Congress’ investigations despite bipartisan outcry and accusations of “stonewalling.”
In a comment to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the Secret Service said, “The U.S. Secret Service is cooperating with a wide range of reviews and investigations related to the attempted assassination on Former President Donald Trump. This includes multiple Congressional investigations, including inquiries by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the Senate, and a special bipartisan task force in the House of Representatives.”
“Since July 13, we have provided more than 2,800 pages of responsive documentation to these entities and have made our employees available for interviews as requested. On Sept. 12, Acting Director Ron Rowe briefed members of U.S. House and Senate committees regarding the agency’s mission assurance investigation. Given the volume of requests, the jurisdiction of requesters, and the finite capacity of resources and staff to respond, the U.S. Secret Service is prioritizing our responses to those listed above.”
