Congress is showing little urgency to open a formal investigation into the third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump, even as some Republicans push for hearings and questions mount about how a gunman breached security at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner last Saturday.
The alleged shooter, Cole Allen, bypassed a security checkpoint with a rifle, a handgun, and several knives before Secret Service agents neutralized him. He never made it into the ballroom, where Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Cabinet members were seated alongside members of the press corps.
“I just happen to think it’s, for the most part, a waste of time,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Fox News Digital. “Security held. The guy didn’t get through. Wasn’t even close.”
That view is not universal. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said the pattern demands scrutiny.
“This is the third assassination attempt on the life of the president in two years,” Hawley told the outlet. “We need to look carefully at all of the procedures and protocols.”
Hawley is pressing Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) to schedule a hearing on presidential security. Paul’s committee spent more than a year investigating the July 2024 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a bullet grazed Trump’s ear. That probe produced more than 40 recommendations for improving Secret Service operations and security planning.
“We’re gonna get a briefing from the Secret Service on what to learn from this attempt, and we’ll decide after that if we need to do anything further,” Paul said. “But absolutely, the Secret Service needs to investigate and see what they can do to make the president safer.”
Top lawmakers on the House Oversight and Senate Judiciary committees have already received private briefings from Secret Service Director Sean Curran this week. Neither committee has announced hearings or launched investigations.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said the lack of urgency troubles him.
“When is it going to be a suicide bomber? When is it going to be an army of people behind the one person that went in and blow up the whole building?” Norman said. “That’s where we are, and I have questions about the three assassination attempts.”
The response contrasts sharply with what followed the first two attempts. After the Butler shooting, Congress launched two major bipartisan investigations. When Ryan Routh was caught with a rifle near Trump’s Florida golf club months later, lawmakers folded that incident into the existing Butler inquiry.
