Congressman Kelly to lead House task force investigating Trump assassination attempt
WASHINGTON — Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, who witnessed the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump firsthand, will lead the House task force charged with investigating what went wrong and recommending solutions to help ensure such an attack doesn’t happen again.
Kelly, who attended Trump’s campaign rally on July 13, sponsored the legislation to create the task force, saying his community was grieving and that “the people of Butler and the people of the United States deserve answers.”
On July 22, Kelly, along with local and national law enforcement, toured the Butler Farm Show grounds — the site of the attempted assassination.
“I can tell you that my community is still grieving,” wrote Kelly in an op-ed he recently in Newsweek. “They are shocked by what happened on what was supposed to be another peaceful day on these grounds. As we walked the Farm Show, we began to understand there are more questions than answers about what exactly happened and what led to the failures on that day.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, jointly announced on Monday that 13 lawmakers had been appointed to the task force. It will be comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats and will issue a final report before Dec. 13.
Kelly introduced the resolution, known officially as House Resolution 1367, on July 22, and it went before the House of Representatives for a vote two days later. In a rare show of bipartisan unity, the resolution, sponsored by Kelly, passed through the House without a single no vote.
Importantly, the resolution also gave the new task force the authority to issue subpoenas.
“We have the utmost confidence in this bipartisan group of steady, highly qualified, and capable members of Congress to move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and help make certain such failures never happen again,” Johnson and Jeffries said in their statement.
In a news release issued by Kelly’s office Monday evening, July 29, the goals of the task force were narrowed down to three: to understand what went wrong, to ensure accountability, and to “prevent such an agency failure from ever happening again.”
Many of the lawmakers have a background in law enforcement, legal affairs or the military. The panel will assume control and jurisdiction over all pending House committee investigations about the Trump assassination attempt, streamlining the work.
The other Republican members of the task force are Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee; Rep. David Joyce of Ohio, a former county prosecutor; Rep. Laurel Lee of Florida, a former assistant U.S. attorney; Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces; Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a former Army staff sergeant and local law enforcement officer; and Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas, a former U.S. Air Force officer.
Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado will serve as the lead Democratic member of the committee. He is a decorated former Army Ranger having served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Other Democratic members are Rep. Lou Correa of California, who sits on the subcommittee that recently visited the site of the assassination attempt; Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, who served in that state's House of Representatives for more than six years before coming to Congress; Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force; Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland, a former assistant U.S. attorney and state’s attorney for Prince George’s County; and Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, the former director of emergency management in that state.
Eagle staff writer William Pitts contributed to this story.
