US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday announced the members of a panel to conduct an independent review into security failures after a gunman was able to wound former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Secret Service, which answers to Mayorkas, is facing criticism for its decisions in planning security for the event, and Republican leaders have called for the agency’s director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, to resign. Mayorkas’ announcement Sunday promised that the panel would get to the bottom of what went wrong and what changes the Secret Service should make to protect the country’s leaders.
“This independent review will examine what happened and provide actionable recommendations to ensure they carry out their no-fail mission most effectively and to prevent something like this from ever happening again,” Mayorkas said in a statement.
The panel— described by Mayorkas as bipartisan— that will be conducting the 45-day review will be made up of Janet Napolitano, a former Homeland Security secretary; Frances Townsend, a former Homeland Security adviser to President George W. Bush; Mark Filip, a former federal judge and a deputy attorney general under Bush; and David Mitchell, a former secretary of the Delaware Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security. Mayorkas said he could invite additional experts to join the panel soon.
Cheatle said in a statement Sunday that she was eager to cooperate with the review.
The announcement comes as Mayorkas is under scrutiny for his handling of the events surrounding the assassination attempt, especially whether he has been able to get adequate answers from Cheatle. Her tenure grew more tenuous over the weekend after the Secret Service revised public comments that it had not denied requests for additional security for Trump the past two years.
Cheatle is expected to testify Monday before the House Oversight Committee and will face a barrage of questions about the Secret Service’s decisions before, during and immediately after the failed assassination July 13. It is likely to be a pivotal moment in the search for what happened at the campaign rally and how federal law enforcement was unable to protect Trump.
Republican lawmakers cited concerns about why the warehouse roof from which the gunman shot was not fully secured and why Trump was kept on the stage despite warnings of a suspicious person at the rally.