Trump shooting task force requests first briefing with key agencies

The bipartisan House panel tasked with investigating the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is taking its first official step: requesting a staff briefing with key agencies.

Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) — the task force chair and top Democrat, respectively — sent a Monday letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr., as well as a separate letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. They requested any documents or records that have already been handed over to the House and Senate.

Read the letters to Mayorkas and Rowe, and Garland and Wray.

Kelly and Crow are also requesting the FBI, DHS, Secret Service and DOJ provide a staff briefing to review their responses to Congress so far and to “discuss the Task Force’s priorities with respect to documents and information moving forward.” The briefing, they add, should be scheduled as soon as possible “but no later than August 16, 2024.”

The House voted late last month to establish the bipartisan task force as leadership sought to wrangle a potentially sprawling, multi-committee probe. Kelly and Crow note in their letters that the task force’s requests supersede any preexisting House requests for information related to the investigation into the July 13 shooting.