There is, still, an element of “horse gone, barn door closed” to all this, but on Wednesday evening, by a bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, a measure was approved to set up a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump.
The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to establish a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced the panel earlier this week and said it will have the full investigative authority of the House, including subpoena power. It will be composed of seven Republicans and six Democrats chosen by Johnson and Jeffries, who have not yet announced their selections.
The resolution requires the task force to submit a final report of its findings no later than Dec. 13, 2024.
For once, the timing of this doesn’t seem suspect; the final report is due after the election, and any influence the attempt on former President Trump’s life will have on the election has already happened — and it’s likely considerable.
What will be interesting is to see who Reps Johnson and Jeffries choose to be on this task force; their selections will very quickly inform us as to how much actual investigation will get done, and how much political grandstanding will take place. On the latter, it’s a fair bet there will be plenty.
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But, honestly, this is still worth doing; it may well reveal some insights as to what precisely went wrong on that fateful day, and some of those findings may make some political figures pretty uncomfortable.
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said the task force will seek to understand what went wrong on July 13, the day of the shooting; ensure accountability; and prevent such a failure by law enforcement from happening again. At the conclusion of its probe, the panel will make recommendations to relevant government agencies and suggest necessary legislation to enact reforms.
The resolution establishing the task force was introduced by Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, whose district includes Butler County, where the rally was held.
Will “eliminating DEI hiring practices” be among those recommendations? We can but hope.
One interesting thing that has come out of this is that this is an issue that is actually bipartisan; in the congressional grilling of Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle on Monday, even notorious “progressive” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) went after Director Cheatle hammer and tongs (as opposed to a hammer and sickle, which is AOC’s usual motif).
See Related: You Know It’s Bad for Secret Service Boss Kim Cheatle When Even AOC Goes After Her at Wild Hearing
In December, many will be awaiting this report with bated breath. Will it result in any action, though? Especially if it means sacrificing one of the left’s sacred cows, that being Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. That remains to be seen.