The director of the United States Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, was summoned to testify on July 22nd regarding the attack in which former President Donald Trump was injured this Saturday during a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The summons to Cheatle was made through a letter signed by James Comer, Director of Oversight and Accountability in Congress, who published the missive on his account on X.
On Saturday afternoon, Trump, 78 years old, had just started a campaign speech in Butler when a gunman opened fire on the stage where he was speaking, with one of the shots hitting the former president's right ear. Immediately, Secret Service agents came to protect him and removed him from the scene.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" Trump shouted at his followers, raising his fist, as the officers quickly took him away. His campaign stated that he was okay and apparently had not suffered major injuries, except for a wound on the upper part of his right ear.
In the letter addressed to Cheatle, Comer praised "the tremendous courage" of the Secret Service agents at the rally, who protected Trump, neutralized the assailant, and prevented further harm among the large attending public. So far, the death of one of the spectators at the event has been reported, while two others were seriously injured.
However, in the hours following the attack, numerous voices have doubted the effectiveness of the Secret Service for not preventing an armed sniper from positioning himself on a rooftop located just 163 yards (about 150 meters) from the podium where the former president was speaking, without being noticed by the many agents present.
"Political violence in all its forms is un-American and unacceptable. There are many questions, and Americans demand answers," Comer stated in a press release.
In the early hours of this Sunday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old resident of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the suspect of what it described as an attempted murder.
Crooks was registered as a Republican, according to the voter rolls of the northeastern US state, and had donated $15 to a Democratic political action committee at the age of 17.
Secret Service agents shot and killed the gunman after he fired multiple shots from the roof of a building near the stage where Trump was speaking. Trump survived the assassination attempt. A semi-automatic rifle type AR-15 used in the shooting was found near his body, according to the agency.
The firearm was legally acquired by Crooks' father, as reported by ABC and the Wall Street Journal, citing sources. In his car, authorities found materials to make bombs, as reported by The Associated Press, according to police sources.
The news agency analyzed over a dozen videos and photographs taken at Trump's rally, as well as satellite images of the location, which show the shooter's proximity to the stage where the former president was speaking.
A video posted on social media and geolocated by AP shows the body of a man dressed in gray camouflage clothing lying motionless on the roof of a manufacturing plant, north of the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Trump's campaign rally was held.
The roof was less than 150 meters away from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a "decent-level" shooter could reasonably hit a human-sized target, AP said, adding as a reference point that at that length is where U.S. Army recruits must hit a human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training. The AR-15 is the civilian semi-automatic version of the military M16.
The shooting occurred days before Trump formally accepts the Republican presidential nomination and less than four months before the November 5th elections, when Trump will face an electoral rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
Kimberly Cheatle has over 28 years of experience in the U.S. Secret Service, she has been leading the agency since September 2022 and is its 27th director and the second woman to hold the position.
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