House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a news conference following a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 10. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
Task force probing Trump assassination attempt to expand to include Florida incident
“We have a responsibility here in Congress to get down to the bottom of this, to figure out why these things are happening and what we can do about it,” the House speaker said in a statement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Tuesday announced that a bipartisan task force created to investigate the July assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump will expand to include the apparent assassination attempt at the GOP presidential nominee’s Florida golf club over the weekend.
“We have a responsibility here in Congress to get down to the bottom of this, to figure out why these things are happening and what we can do about it,” Johnson said in a statement.
Johnson said he spoke with the White House and pressed for Trump to receive the same amount of protection from the Secret Service as a sitting president.
“He is under constant threat,” Johnson said of Trump.
While Trump was not injured in the second possible assassination attempt, he was injured in his ear during a shooting in Butler, Pa., in July.
“He’s in the midst of a heated campaign, and this is an obvious thing that has now been proven that we need to do,” Johnson said. “In the meantime, Congress is going to do everything that we can to ensure that that happens. And one of the things we’re going to do is expand the scope of the existing task force to cover the second assassination attempt.”
That task force, led by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., Tuesday requested that the Department of Justice and FBI brief lawmakers on the possible assassination attempt by Friday.
The suspect in the Florida incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, was charged in federal court Monday with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and with obliterating the serial number on a firearm, according to court records.
Acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe said Monday that Routh did not fire his weapon.
Rowe said that since the July 13 assassination attempt, the Secret Service has “moved to increase assets to an already enhanced security posture for the former president.”
He added that President Joe Biden “made it clear that he wanted the highest levels of protection for former President Trump.”
“The Secret Service moved to sustain increases in assets and the level of protection sought, and those things were in place yesterday,” Rowe said of Sunday’s incident.
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