Rep. Mike Kelly, chair of Trump shooting task force, vows bipartisan inquiry will get answers

Most major congressional investigations come with a trail of doubters and parallel sleuths.

Already, the task force investigating the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has drawn criticism from U.S. Reps. Cory Mills, R-Fla., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., ex-snipers who were left off the panel. Mills has pledged to conduct a self-funded inquiry.

But Butler County Republican Rep. Mike Kelly, who chairs the task force, and a slew of other lawmakers say they have full faith in the bipartisan investigation to uncover the security breakdowns that allowed a gunman to open fire at the Butler Farm Show grounds last month.

As a longtime resident and representative of Butler, Kelly said his hometown connection makes him the right fit to head the panel. He introduced a resolution for its creation last week, which went on to get unanimous approval from his House colleagues.

While lacking security experience — a release from his office touts “ties to the local law enforcement community” — Kelly is surrounded on the committee by six other Republicans and six Democrats, most of whom bring legal, military or law enforcement experience to the table.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Montgomery County, who serves on the House Judiciary and House Foreign Affairs committees, is the only appointee besides Kelly without any of these backgrounds. She did not return requests for comment.

These lawmakers aren’t the splashiest picks, Kelly acknowledged, but he said they’ll get the job done.

“When you look at the 13 members that are on this task force, they’re not media superstars,” Kelly said. “These are serious legislators. These are strong Americans. I think one of the things we have to be careful of is there’s a tendency right now for people to get charged up.”

Task force members such as Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, have expressed confidence in not just their own qualifications but the qualifications of others on the panel as well. He’s one of several moderates tapped for the investigation.

“President Trump, those injured on July 13, Corey Comperatore’s family and the American people deserve these answers,” Joyce said. “That is why Speaker Johnson appointed members who are former prosecutors and law enforcement officers to ensure a legitimate, fact-based investigation.”

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, called the task force members “well-equipped” to conduct the investigation and said he’ll keep an eye on any findings via his role on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Another Pennsylvania Democrat, Rep. Chris Deluzio of Aspinwall, said “partisan politics should have no role in the important work of this task force.”

At least one panel member gravitates toward more extreme views. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, has endorsed conspiracy theories related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection purporting that FBI agents tricked Trump supporters into ransacking the Capitol, among other claims.

On Monday, Higgins said in a release he is looking forward to “working with my bipartisan colleagues to deliver the truth” on the Trump shooting.

The presence of conspiracy-minded House lawmakers, along with early dissension within the Republican caucus, hints at how fraught the investigation into a shooting that wounded Trump and two of his supporters and killed another could become.

The last time federal politicians had such a close brush with danger was when hundreds of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building, forcing lawmakers to hole up in offices and bunkers.

A bipartisan panel formed to investigate the riot has been subject to attacks by many on the right, and, in March, House Republicans released a report undermining the panel’s star witness and leveling accusations of collusion between the committee and a district attorney.

That committee, chaired by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, included 10 Democrats and two Republicans, unlike the more evenly balanced shooting task force.

Kristin Kanthak, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the apparent level of buy-in on both sides of the aisle will make a big difference this time around.

“Those (Jan. 6) investigations were not truly bipartisan, and that taints the information that comes out of them,” Kanthak said. “But, if we’re looking here at a truly bipartisan committee, where both sides can look at the data and can figure out what happened, I’m actually really confident that at the end of the day we’re going to know what happened.”

She didn’t rule out that Republicans could use their one-vote advantage to “railroad” Democrats, generating separate partisan reports, but she finds it likely that political maneuvering actually will lead to more robust findings.

“If both sides are trying to spin the truth in the way that most benefits them, what ends up popping out is the truth,” Kanthak said. “In these highly polarized times, we can be really confident that no stone will go unturned.”

Findings may be released in pieces as the task force, armed with subpoena power, calls witnesses for public testimony and pores over documents. Aside from a final report due Dec. 13, the panel is empowered to release information as it deems necessary.

With the House in recess until early September, a substantial portion of the work could happen virtually.

“Coordination is going to be the hardest part that I have,” Kelly said.

The inquiry will stretch from the very first planning meeting among agencies charged with security roles at Trump’s rally until shots rang out, Kelly said, with the goal of ensuring no such security failure can happen again under the Secret Service’s watch — not just for the sake of candidates but the ordinary Americans caught in the crossfire, too.

“I can’t imagine the Comperatore family as they left their home on Saturday morning, on July 13, the excitement that family had of seeing a Trump rally,” Kelly said. “For their day to start one way and end another is a tragedy you just can’t accept.”