Task force probing Trump assassination attempt to expand to include Florida incident

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a news conference after a weekly Republican conference meeting in the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 14, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson Tuesday announced that a bipartisan task force created to investigate the July assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump will expand to include the apparent assassination attempt at the GOP presidential nominee’s Florida golf club over the weekend.

“We have a responsibility here in Congress to get down to the bottom of this, to figure out why these things are happening and what we can do about it,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said in a statement.

Johnson said that he spoke with the White House and pressed for Trump to receive the same amount of protection from the U.S. Secret Service as a sitting president.

“He is under constant threat,” Johnson said of Trump.

While Trump was not injured in the second possible assassination attempt, he was injured in his ear during a shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

“He’s in the midst of a heated campaign, and this is an obvious thing that has now been proven that we need to do,” Johnson said. “In the meantime, Congress is going to do everything that we can to ensure that that happens. And one of the things we’re going to do is expand the scope of the existing task force to cover the second assassination attempt.”

That task force, led by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, Tuesday requested that the Department of Justice and FBI brief lawmakers on the possible assassination attempt by Friday.

The suspect in the Florida incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, was charged in federal court Monday with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and with obliterating the serial number on a firearm, according to court records.

Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ron Rowe said Monday that Routh did not fire his weapon.

Rowe said that since the July 13 assassination attempt, the U.S. Secret Service has “moved to increase assets to an already enhanced security posture for the former president.”

He added that President Joe Biden “made it clear that he wanted the highest levels of protection for former President Trump.”

“The Secret Service moved to sustain increases in assets and the level of protection sought, and those things were in place yesterday,” Rowe said of Sunday’s incident.