WASHINGTON (TNS) — Local and state officials, including members of police agencies working the Butler rally where a gunman nearly took Donald Trump’s life in July, are poised to testify Thursday as a House task force investigation advances on Capitol Hill.
Task force chairman Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, and top Democrat Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., on Tuesday named the five witnesses set to appear at the group’s first hearing, which follows lawmakers’ extensive records requests and interviews in recent weeks, along with a site visit by several task force members last month.
Edward Lenz, an Adams Township Police Department sergeant and commander in the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, will testify along with Drew Blasko, a patrolman in Butler Township Police Department, John Herold, a Pennsylvania State police lieutenant, Patrick Sullivan, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, and Dr. Ariel Goldschmidt, Allegheny County’s medical examiner.
The hearing comes more than two months after the July 13 assassination attempt and with pressure mounting on the Secret Service and local authorities as campaigns continue to swing through Pennsylvania during a heightened threat environment.
Federal prosecutors are preparing to file attempted assassination charges against a man arrested last week after he was spotted holding a rifle along a Trump-owned golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Kelly and Crow told reporters last week that there were obvious failures by the Secret Service in Butler, but that the agency appeared to follow proper procedures in Florida, thwarting a second assassination attempt.
The lawmakers said Tuesday that the task force has reviewed “thousands of documents” on the Butler shooting from local, state and federal agencies, conducted almost two dozen transcribed interviews with local law enforcement and met with the FBI and Secret Service.
The Secret Service, whose acting chief vowed accountability for agency failures Friday after previously questioning local law enforcement’s actions in Butler, has provided almost 3,000 pages of documents, the task force said.
Crow told reporters last week that they have seen no evidence of “stonewalling” from any agency that they’ve hit with records requests.
Republican lawmakers — including some on the bipartisan task force — have attacked the Secret Service and the FBI during the investigation.
Trump on Monday alleged that the Justice Department and Secret Service under the Biden administration could not be trusted to handle the inquiry into the second attempt on his life. He argued instead that Florida prosecutors should take over the case.
The House on Friday voted unanimously to expand the task force’s investigation to include the Florida incident.
The task force’s hearing is set for 9:30 a.m. today.
