Rep. Laurel Lee, Newsmax National Desk: Investigating the Assassination Attempt of President Trump

Rep Laurel Lee and joining us now as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and Florida congresswoman Laurel Lee She's also part of that bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of former president Trump Congressman Lee thank you for being here uh with us today I want to get your thoughts uh on on what we need to be learning from the Secret Service we obviously saw that hearing yesterday uh some would argue there's more questions still than answers uh what are you hoping to learn from the Secret Service in the coming weeks it is apparent that one of the critical failures here was communication that the secret surface when they come to these communities they rely on Partnerships with state and local law enforcement to secure an area like this rally and we've seen very clearly that this was just a catastrophic failure that day in Pennsylvania I along with several of my colleagues in Congress had the opportunity to go out and visit the site last week and it is all the more stunning to actually walk that area and see how small it is and how few buildings there were that needed to be secured that day so the first thing that I think we need to do is understand how that communication breakdown occurred how this could possibly have happened uh and and the reason that that's so critical is because of course president Trump is out you know again tonight at a rally vice president Harris is also out doing rallies with the public and secret service has this responsibility for making sure that those are safe places for these candidates and also for the people people who are attending the rallies so it is a very urgent matter for us to get to the bottom of what fell apart here and make sure that it isn't going to happen The bipartisan task force again and Congressman Lee I'm sure a lot of people at home are wondering what this bipartisan task force looks like and also uh what the timeline for all of this is going to be could you elaborate on on kind of where where things are going from here uh over the next several weeks how do you begin your investigation and then continue it so one thing that's important about this task force is who is serving on it so it is bipartisan but the members of this group include former Law Enforcement Officers former prosecutors uh and individuals with prior military experience it is a group of people who understand how to conduct an investigation how to hold people accountable and how to provide transparency around an incident like this so I know we will start by talking to all of the people that have the most important information that'll be secret service officers that'll be the SWAT team members who were there that day all of the local law enforcement who were part of this overall response and also the rally goers who saw and heard very important things on that day so we will get information and testimony from all of them put together the evidence and understand paint that picture of what happens start to finish here that could have gone so wrong so I'm confident that this group working together has a tremendous amount of skill and experience to bring to the task I know that we will uh the speaker speaker Johnson has asked us to issue a report no later than December 13th but you can see already that inquiries and questions from Congress visits from Congress already is eliciting important information that will start the process of shedding light on what happened that Secret Service leadership day and I want to get your thoughts too initially I mean I know he just took over but on the acting secret service director do you think he right now seems to be the right guy to lead the Secret Service or do you think that the leadership team needs a complete overhaul in the aftermath of this but also today the report that the stepdaughter of Vice President Harris uh the detail that she was traveling with in Manhattan uh they actually had their car vandalized so I mean your thoughts on the Secret Service and the leadership here well look the the resignation of director cheel was a very important First Step because you know they have a zero fail Mission and ultimate responsibility will rest with the Secret Service you so it it is not acceptable to try to lay blame on local law enforcement or others who may have been part of the operation so that was a very important first step we also saw some progress yesterday I think with an effort to be more transparent and an effort to be more candid but there are still so very many unanswered questions so how far into secret Services failure goes uh which members of Secret Service were responsible for this uh where those failures lay where that responsibility lays that's one of the things that we'll be looking at I certainly would expect that there will be others who are held accountable before this process is done uh which people those should be I think it's too soon for us to say but I do absolutely expect that they're going to be people who are accountable and also some processes that need to change fundamentally having a secure organized command Center so that all members who are part of a response and part of a Security operation are communicating with each other immediately timely that information is getting out you there going to be some internal reforms that clearly need to take place at Secret Service as well all right a member of that new bipartisan task force Congressman Laurel Lee of Florida thank you for being here today pleasure to see you