Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, told Newsmax the American public has lost confidence in the executive branch because "they're not telling the truth" in the wake of an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
"They're hiding stuff," Pfluger, chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, said Saturday on "America Right Now."
"It's exactly why [former Secret Service Director] Kimberly Cheatle received multiple calls to resign, because all she had to say was, 'We messed up. It was a failure. We don't know exactly what happened, but we're going to get to the bottom of it and we will tell you exactly what happened.' That has not happened," he said.
He said just because Cheatle has stepped down doesn't mean she's exonerated or shouldn't be questioned further. Trust, he said, needs to be restored, especially with the Secret Service.
"If you think about this agency, there should be nothing political about it whatsoever. They are there to protect President [George W.] Bush, President [Bill] Clinton, President [Barack] Obama, President [Donald] Trump, as well as President [Joe] Biden and other members that get that level of protection. They should be the first to tell us the truth.
"We just need to get to the bottom of this particular incident. And, obviously, there are a lot of questions. And whether it's the former director or the new director, they have a lot of questions to answer," he said.
Congress has agreed to create a bipartisan task force to investigate the assassination attempt on Trump. Pfluger said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., deserves credit for putting the task force together and encouraged them to work rapidly in order to give the American people answers.
He also pointed out that the House Homeland Security Committee has jurisdiction over Secret Service.
"There's obviously a part with oversight and other committees, but we need a bipartisan commission that looks and feels like a post-9/11 commission to get the answers and to go back to the executive branch and say, 'We know you failed. And, oh, by the way, if you're hiding something from us, we're also going to dig into that,'" he said.
Pfluger recently introduced the Counter Secretary Negligence In Protecting Election Runners (SNIPER) Act, which would require the Department of Homeland Security to provide transparency when it doesn't order protective details for people like independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other presidential candidates. He said he hopes it passes.
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