The leaders of the House task force created to investigate the assassination attempt against former President Trump are feeling the time pressure to investigate the shooting in just a few short months — and keep the panel that got strikingly bipartisan support from succumbing to spectacle.
Task force Chair Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and ranking member Jason Crow (D-Colo.) laid out the priorities and challenges for the panel in interviews with The Hill.
“At the end of this investigation, the American people … cannot be still wondering what happened,” Kelly said. “We’re going to have a clear answer to what happened. And whatever it is that we have to do, we’re going to do, including having some people subpoenaed.”
But the panel will have to move at a much faster pace than typical congressional investigations to produce a thorough final report by a Dec. 13 deadline.
“We only have four months here, so it’s going to be a really quick burn,” Crow said. “We’re going to have to make sure that this is accurate. Accuracy is very important here; we don’t want there to be misunderstanding. We don’t want to fuel any of these alternative theories that are flying around.”
The task force took its first official action earlier this week with letters to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice requesting briefings and any documents in the works based on requests from other House panels. And it is staffing up, which Crow said has not been difficult because “people realize the historic nature of this.”
A visit to the shooting site for the task force’s members is in the works for the week of Aug. 26, Kelly said. Some members have already been there as part of a House Homeland Security Committee trip in the days after the July 13 shooting.
One panel member, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who went to the site with fellow members of that committee earlier this month, posted a selfie on the social platform X pointing at the roof from which the gunman fired at the former president, killed one attendee, and left two others critically injured.
Kelly expects the panel will hold public hearings, perhaps even in September when lawmakers return for a three-week period before breaking again in October ahead of the election.
But that scheduled time away from Washington, D.C., is complicating the work for the task force. One member of the panel, granted anonymity to speak candidly, expressed frustration earlier this month about the panel moving too slowly.
“The biggest challenge we’re going to be facing is the ability for us to be together, to look at things together, and that’s going to be my responsibility,” Kelly said.
As the panel ramps up, information continues to trickle out about security failures around the rally. Videos show rally attendees trying to warn law enforcement about the suspected shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, acting suspicious. In a Senate hearing last month, officials detailed communication breakdowns.
With Trump and Vice President Harris actively campaigning, there is also a question about what the task force can do to address security before the November election.
“We’ll have to decide whether or not we’re in a position to make preliminary recommendations that could be implemented in a shorter time frame,” Crow said.
Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), a member of the task force, said the tight turnaround leaves the task force in a position of having to “trust but verify” that the Secret Service is already taking needed steps to rectify known issues.
“These candidates were out last weekend campaigning, so this stuff is happening in real time. That’s my frustration, is we don’t have time,” Correa said. “We have time to do the check, the verify, but the Secret Service has to be on it yesterday.”
One action the panel is not considering: bringing in the former president.
“I don’t know what the advantage would be in talking to President Trump about it,” Kelly said.
Task force leaders hope to avoid spectacle. The House authorized the panel in a rare unanimous roll call vote in July, and the goal is to keep up that bipartisanship.
Kelly said the makeup of the panel, 13 members announced jointly by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), shows it will be a serious operation.
“Nobody would say, ‘Oh, I know who that is. I see them on the front steps of the Capitol all the time. I know who that is, They’re on TV every night yelling at somebody from the Secret Service or the FBI or something,’” Kelly said.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), another task force member, said Kelly has reached out “to make sure that we were all on the same page,” and that if anything strayed from that, “to tamp it down.”
But the selection of the members was not without controversy. Frustrated with not making the panel despite looking into the matter himself, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) said he would run a “parallel independent investigation” into the assassination attempt.
Crow said they’re otherwise hoping for a cohesive effort from those on the task force, saying he and Kelly were focused on “putting in place the right team, in setting the right tone, to do this quickly and to do this in a serious way.”
For Kelly, the task force is personal.
A lifelong resident of Butler, Pa., he grew up showing animals at the Farm Show fairground that became the Trump rally site. Later, as an automobile dealer, he had exhibits at the venue featuring trucks and other vehicles.
Kelly was in the front row at Trump’s July 13 rally, and his wife, son, and three of his grandchildren were in attendance elsewhere in the crowd.
“I actually thought the president was dead,” Kelly said when he saw a bloodied Trump go down to the ground after the shots were fired. Later, he had trouble reconnecting with his family.
Reflecting back now, Kelly has questions about the Farm Show site being chosen for the rally.
“When the site was chosen? Who chose it? Why did they choose it?” Kelly said. “What was the coordination between the Secret Service and the different law enforcement groups that were there to try and have safety and security of the whole operation?”
In some corners, there have been concerns raised over Trump’s preference for large outdoor rallies.
“The big question that I keep asking that I’ve not gotten an answer to is, who’s really in charge?” Correa asked, casting the Butler Farm Show site as “not secure.”
“Some of the people [were] insinuating to me, maybe the campaign had too much decisionmaking when it came to the site, how the stage was set up,” said Correa, also visited Butler during the House Homeland Security Committee trip to the site.
Houlahan, meanwhile, is interested in the drones that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had flown over the rally site.
“The gentleman who attempted this assassination was using technology, drones specifically, that I think the Secret Service and others weren’t prepared for,” Houlahan said.
In the wake of the shooting — and a disastrous appearance before Congress — Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her post as Secret Service director.
Her deputy, Ronald Rowe, has stepped in as the acting director and has promised to undertake a number of changes to regain the public’s trust in the agency.
That includes using drones to better survey sites, as well as using Secret Service countersnipers at all events, rather than relying on local law enforcement. But he said it would be difficult to better connect communications systems with local assistance, telling reporters that the “interoperability challenge, it’s not an easy fix.”
He also resisted repeated demands from lawmakers to fire Secret Service personnel responsible for planning and response at the rally, saying he would not rush to judgment and would let an internal investigation play out.
Crow said the panel’s report was one method for beginning that process.
“I would expect it will have very concrete recommendations for accountability,” he said.
Mychael Schnell contributed.