Top House Republicans vowed Saturday evening to conduct a full investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, saying there are many questions and Americans need answers.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) called for the U.S. Secret Service director to appear before his committee, amid accusations that Trump’s Secret Service detail provided insufficient protection.
“I have already contacted the Secret Service for a briefing and am also calling on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to appear for a hearing,” Comer announced on X. He said that the Oversight Committee would be sending a formal invitation soon.
“We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP,” House speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Saturday evening. “The American people deserve to know the truth.”
Trump’s right ear was grazed by a bullet, and two rallygoers were also hit, one fatally.
Trump was rushed off the stage by the Secret Service, but not before he pumped his fist for the stunned crowd and yelled “fight! fight! fight!”
The Trump Campaign quickly assured the media that the former president was “fine” and was being checked out at a local medical facility.
The former president was discharged from the Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, a Level I trauma center, shortly after 9PM Eastern Time.
Trump issued a statement on Truth Social.
“I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
The BBC spoke with a witness who saw a man with a rifle scale a building that was about 400 feet from where Trump was standing.
The witness, Greg, said that he and his friends immediately alerted law enforcement that a gunman climbing to the roof of the building.
“Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle!” Greg said he told the police.
“And the police were like, huh, what? Like they didn’t know what was going on,” he said. Greg said he told law enforcement he could see a man with a rifle crawling on the roof, and pointed to exactly where he was for two to three minutes.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘why is Trump still speaking? Why have they not pulled him off the stage? ‘” Greg told the BBC reporter. “The Secret Service is looking at us from the top of the barn. I’m pointing to that roof … and next thing you know, five shots rang out.”
Greg said he was 100 percent certain that the shots came from the gunman on the roof. He told the BBC reporter that the shooter was on the roof for approximately three to four minutes before the shots rang out.
Asked if the Secret Service could see the gunman, Greg answered, “probably not” because of the was the roof was slanted.
“He was behind where they could see,” Greg explained. “But why are there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here? I mean, this is not a big place.”
“When asked if he saw what happened to the gunman after the shooting started, Greg answered, “oh yeah, they blew his head off.”
Video footage shows the dead gunman laying on the top of the roof.
The Federalist’s Sean Davis reported on X Saturday evening that a source familiar with Trump’s security detail told him that Trump’s security detail had been asking for increased protection and resources for weeks, but had been “rebuffed time and again by Biden’s DHS.”
The source said DHS, which oversees Secret Service protective detail “wasn’t responsive to those requests” for more resources.
“Was Biden’s regime behind the attack, or did it deliberately do everything it could to allow it to happen?” Davis asked.
Joe Biden’s campaign, meanwhile announced that it would pull down its demagogic television ads, which were running in all key battleground states.
Many on the right have said for years that the dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric used by Biden and Democrats to demonize Trump would eventually incite an assassination attempt.
In a televised statement, Biden called the incident “sick.”
“We can not allow this to be happening. We can not be like this. We can not condone this,” he said.
“I want to thank the Secret Service and all the state agencies that have been engaged in making sure that people who … and we have more details to come relative to maybe other people being injured in the audience. I don’t have all that detail but will make that available to you. I may be able to come back a little later tonight but we’ll put out a statement if we don’t, if I’m not able … if it’s not convenient to you all. The bottom line is, the Trump rally, was a rally that he should have been able to conduct it peacefully without any problem,” Biden said. “But the idea, the idea that there’s political violence in America is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate,” Biden added. “Everybody must condemn it, everybody.”
Biden refused to call the shooting an assassination attempt, when asked, telling a reporter “I don’t know enough to, I have an opinion but I don’t have any facts.