(NewsNation) — A bipartisan congressional task force looking into the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump will hear from the Secret Service on Wednesday about the apparent second attempt on the former president’s life.
The task force, led by Chairman Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and ranking member Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., decided recently to include both incidents in their investigation.
Both attempts have stark differences. At the one in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, the gunman opened fire at a Trump rally taking place. During the second, the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, did not shoot, and instead, allegedly pointed an AK-47-style rifle through the fence at a golf course at West Palm Beach where Trump was. The Secret Service apprehended Routh before he was able to fire off any shots.
No one was injured, but lawmakers are questioning how Routh got so close to Trump, as he camped out near the golf course for 12 hours without being noticed. There are debates about what to do moving forward, including whether to give the Secret Service more funds, or hold them until changes are put in place at the agency.
“There’s this discussion of resources. I think a lot of people are open to that discussion, but first, we need to see accountability, and we need to see real corrections from what went wrong at Butler,” task force member Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., said. “We can’t pour more resources behind bad procedure and agents that clearly didn’t follow their procedures.”