Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security Joseph Cuffari testifies during a House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs hearing on June 6, 2023. (Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
After the evasive House testimony of now-former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray’s shortlived suggestion that Donald Trump may not have been hit by a bullet, one man alone may help allay Republican fears that the Biden administration will not conduct a forthright investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump last month: Joseph Cuffari.
The Trump-appointed inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security has already opened two investigations into the U.S. Secret Service, which is under the purview of the DHS, related to the agency’s handling of the July 13 shooting.
But some Republicans are concerned because, they say, Cuffari has been stonewalled by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on other internal examinations – including one that might have revealed Secret Service lapses that might have prevented the attempt on Trump’s life.
Specifically, congressional sources tell RCI that Cuffari’s report, “USSS Preparation for and Response to the Events of January 6, 2021,” has been on Mayorkas’ desk since at least April.
The report, according to Politico, will “cast light on a series of embarrassing security lapses for the agency.” And given some comparisons between Jan. 6 and July 13, the report might shed light on systemic issues that impacted both events.
For example, unanswered questions remain as to why the Secret Service allowed Trump to take the stage at The Ellipse outside the White House around noon on Jan. 6 amid reports of individuals with weapons in the vicinity – a question many Americans have about the July 13 assassination attempt. Law enforcement and spectators noted the presence of a suspicious individual, later identified as the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, at least a half hour before Trump took the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In addition, no one has explained how the Secret Service failed to notice an alleged pipe bomb found outside the Democrat National Committee DC office on Jan. 6 – while then Vice President-elect Harris was inside the building. Previous reporting by RCI shows multiple law enforcement officers, including one with a bomb-sniffing dog, walking past the bench where the device was found.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chairman of a House subcommittee tasked with a separate investigation into Jan. 6 as well as the now-defunct J6 committee, recently accused Mayorkas of intentionally holding the release of the report. The Georgia Republican told Mayorkas in a letter that “the failure to provide an in-depth review of the department’s security planning and operational failures related to January 6 not only raises concerns about the department’s botched planning for former president Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, but it is quite possible that such reports could have prevented the security breakdown that resulted in the near assassination of a former president and presidential candidate.”
Top Democrats have long sought to remove Cuffari – a former investigator for the Air Force and Department of Justice whom Trump appointed in 2019 in 2019 – from office. The coordinated effort began when the IG notified Congress that a trove of Secret Service texts from January 5 and 6, 2021 had been deleted in late January 2021 under the Biden administration. The purge occurred weeks after every federal agency received a directive from Congress to preserve all evidence related to January 6.
(Read more: Julie Kelly/Real Clear Investigations, 7/30/2024) (Archive)