House Republicans criticized Democrats on Monday for using a hearing on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump to call for gun control.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was at the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing to testify about security failures that led to a 20-year-old gunman opening fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania this month, shooting the former president in the ear, wounding two rallygoers, and killing a third.
But committee members such as Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.; Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.; and Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., used much of their time to highlight the type of rifle the gunman borrowed from his father, who had legally purchased the weapon.
Raskin began by expressing concern about “all the AR-15s out there” and spent several minutes of his speaking time urging a federal ban on the rifles.
Before questioning Cheatle, Connolly said, “There’s some things my friends on one particular side of the aisle don’t really want to talk about, like AR-15s and access to them by a 20-year-old—or anybody, for that matter.” He then asked repeatedly whether gun access makes Secret Service’s job “easier” or “harder.”
Cheatle repeatedly dodged the question, saying she pays attention to whatever “environment that the Secret Service works in every day.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything,” Connolly told her angrily.
Norton referred to “guns” as “one of the roots of political violence” in her opening statement and argued against allowing the concealed carrying of handguns in Washington.
Republicans who attended the hearing attacked their Democratic colleagues’ priorities in comments to The Daily Signal.
“The Democrats never miss an opportunity to push for gun control,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., told The Daily Signal. “Give them any episode that happens and they’re going to push for gun control. We have the Second Amendment for a reason, and it has to be protected.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said the gun control topic belongs in “a separate hearing.”
“There are a lot of different things that we could do to reduce gun violence in this country, but this is a hearing about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump,” she told The Daily Signal.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, accused Democrats of wanting to “jump on” the gun issue after avoiding “responsible legislation” on guns in Congress for several years. “The bottom line is … that we have to pass something for changes to be made.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said members of Congress should be “focused on trying to get answers” about the Trump rally shooting.
“But frankly,” he added, Cheatle is “not giving us any answers.”
The office of Ranking Member Raskin, who led the charge in bringing up gun control at the hearing, did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
Republicans and Democrats, however, were widely united in their frustration with Cheatle’s often unresponsive testimony about Trump’s near-assassination. She alluded to “ongoing investigations” as her reason for not giving more detailed responses.
“We had members on both sides of the aisle calling for her resignation,” Mace noted, adding that “this unified the country.”