Senator Ron Johnson complained the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service have not provided enough help with his ongoing investigation into the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
Johnson wrote that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) has run into this roadblock in trying to get key information for its probe.
“Things like the autopsy report, you know, the House has it under subpoena. We don’t have it,” he told reporters.
“[The] toxicology report; we don’t have any of the trajectory reports. So, where’d the bullets go? We don’t even know how they handled the crime scene,” said Johnson, ranking member of the HSGAC Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI).
Johnson referenced the statements put out in July that “There’s just basic information we should have right now, and we don’t have it.”
“We haven’t been able to interview the sniper who took out [Thomas] Crooks,” Johnson said. Crooks is the would-be assassin that, during the July 13 rally in Pennsylvania, opened fire, grazing the former president’s ear, killing a rally attendee and critically injuring two others.
The FBI, too, has been lacking in the same information that Johnson claims was withheld by the Secret Service. And he also said that, despite promises from FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate to provide the panel with FD-302 forms related to an interview she was asked to submit on the Russia probe, Nunnsborg has not received any documents.
“None (gesturing to Cochran) — I haven’t gotten one,” Johnson said, noting the FBI had done more than 1,000 interviews while his committee had only finished 12.
Feingold, the Wisconsin senator, said he was frustrated with what he called a “pattern of slow-walking” and lack of transparency from both the Secret Service and the FBI.
The documents received from Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe were “heavily redacted,” Johnson said during a recent briefing. “I’ve never seen this level of redaction.” “And in this case, unusually. I have never seen this,” he said, noting that instead of being blacked out as customarily occurs in redaction, they appear as white space on the documents.
Johnson asked in response to the redactions, “So, I don’t know. Was it just a single word?” He noted whiteouts where it wasn’t apparent if text was deleted in certain cases.
“Which is how opaque they’re being in terms of their non cooperation with our investigation,” Johnson said.
However, the Secret Service insists it is cooperating with investigations on Capitol Hill, despite bipartisan gripes about a lack of transparency.
A Secret Service spokesman told Fox News Digital, “The U.S. Secret Service is providing assistance in a variety of reviews and inquiries related to the attempted assassination on Former President Donald Trump. That means numerous Congressional inquiries, both from the Senate Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, but also the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the Senate, as well as a special bipartisan task force out of the House.”
The spokesperson added that many documents — over 2,800 pages worth in all — had been provided and interviewed multiple employees as part of the ongoing information campaign.
Yet Johnson and others are frustrated by the investigation, which is moving slowly and less openly than some members would like. The investigation is ongoing and a report of findings to date is expected soon.