U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) recently joined the growing chorus of voices saying that Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle should be fired after the attempted assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday, which many view as a catastrophic security failure.
The attempt occurred on Saturday during a Trump rally in Butler, Pa. According to officials, Trump was shot in the ear after 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed a nearby building and fired multiple shots before being killed by Secret Service counter-snipers.
On a Thursday appearance on the "Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show," Tuberville described a conference call between Cheatle and other senators, in which Tuberville claims Cheatle tried to downplay the shooting as a “failure” on the part of the Crooks. Tuberville also claimed there was going to be a “huge fight” between Pennsylvania police and the Secret Service as Cheatle continues to try to pass the blame.
“I will tell you this: Yesterday, about this time, we had a conference call with her,” Tuberville said. “First thing she says and tries to push over all of us Democrat and Republican senators - she says, ‘First of all, this was a failure of assassination.’ Stop. Once that trigger was pulled, you should be fired.”
He continued, “Before the sun went down after that, she should have been fired. And, of course, there’s nobody running the zoo up there right now. Joe Biden: he doesn’t know what day it is, so he’s not going to fire anybody."
The Secret Service's slew of perceived administrative failures has already led to multiple scheduled congressional hearings from federal officials. Cheatle is slated to join DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI director Christopher Wray in a congressional oversight hearing on Tuesday.
For Tuberville, however, the glut of congressional hearings and oversight committees means little in terms of acquiring true accountability.
“I keep hearing, “Oh man, we’re going to have House hearings next week. We’re going to have Senate hearings;’ they don’t mean a damn thing, OK,” Tuberville said. “You can get somebody to just get up there and absolutely lie to you. Nothing’s going to happen. It’s got to go back to the person up top that’s got to hold people accountable for their job. But nobody is. Washington, D.C. is a cluster. It is an absolute cluster. We've got way too many bureaucrats, way too many people that work in the federal government, nobody’s accountable, do what you want to do. Half the people, I’d say 80% of the people in Washington, D.C., they haven’t been to work since COVID. They work from home. Are you kidding me? We can’t run a country like this.”
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email craig.monger@1819news.com.
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