WASHINGTON, DC – Republican Rep. Mike Kelly (PA) of northwest Pennsylvania, who is leading the newly created task force investigating the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, hopes to bring all task force members to the scene of the incident in Butler County by the end of this month.
Kelly said he has so far reached out to authorities to get the ball rolling, but right now it is difficult to assemble the task force as members return to their home counties for the month of August. Kelly hopes to get everyone to the Pennsylvania site by the end of the month at the latest.
In July, the former president was the victim of an assassination attempt at a rally in Kelly’s district. Authorities said Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet. The shooter was later killed by the Secret Service.
Kelly added that he wants members to meet and hear from local authorities who were on the scene during the attack a month ago. So far, he has spoken to all members of the task force. Their goal is to determine what mistakes led to the attack and to present their findings to the public before the end of the year.
“One of my main concerns from the beginning was: what site did you select and what kind of oversight was there in vetting that site,” said Rep. Kelly. “And then it comes down to: how was it possible to get not only the Secret Service but all of the local law enforcement to that site? And one of the things that concerns me right now is if you didn’t know about it until the afternoon of July 13th.th that you couldn’t communicate with each other, that doesn’t bode well.”
The task force will have the power to issue subpoenas, and Kelly adds that this is a big responsibility for all members of this investigation. We expect this task force to really hit its stride when members return to Washington next month. We asked Kelly if there will be many prime-time public hearings like we saw with the January 6 committee inquiry.th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Kelly said he doesn’t want that kind of theater for this task force. We expect much of their work will be behind the scenes.
