Comer issues subpoena for USSS director to testify after assassination attempt

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has issued a subpoena for U.S. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to testify before lawmakers after the assassination attempt on former President Trump on Saturday.

Fox News’ congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reports that Comer has issued a subpoena for Cheatle to appear before house lawmakers next Monday.

An Oversight Committee spokesperson said a subpoena would “head off any attempt by [the Department of Homeland Security] to backtrack from her appearance on Monday,” Pergram said on “The Story with Martha MacCallum” Tuesday.

He noted that communication between the DHS and the U.S. Secret Service in Capitol Hill “was not going as well as some members had hoped.”

“They were thinking that communication was going pretty good. I was told by one source that Homeland Security kind of stepped in and quieted some of the communication between the Secret Service and Capitol Hill,” Pergram said.

In addition to next Monday’s hearing there will be a second hearing the following Tuesday where House lawmakers will hear from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Pergram confirmed.

USSS director Cheatle has been under scrutiny in recent days for the Secret Service’s failure to prevent an assassination attempt on the former present.

Trump’s would-be assassin – later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks – fired shots at the former president from the rooftop of a nearby building just minutes after the rally began on Saturday. While the bullets only grazed Trump’s ear, one attendee was killed and others were injured.

Cheatle said Tuesday that the building from which Crooks fired had “a sloped roof at its highest point.”

“And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” Cheatle said. “And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building from inside.”

Despite her comments, snipers were stationed on sloped roofs behind the building where Trump spoke. Video footage shows the building is clearly more sloped than the building where Trump’s would-be assassin was ultimately shot and killed after firing upon the former president.