Creators Syndicate
September 3, 2024
On July 24, by a vote of 416-0, the U.S. House of
Representatives established a bipartisan task force to investigate the
attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump.
The House leadership appointed Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), for
no other reason than he represents the district and lives in the county where
the attempt occurred. In fact, he should probably be a witness in front of his
own task force. He was present on July 13, when the attempted assassination
occurred.
In 1981, following the assassination attempt on President
Ronald Reagan, Congress did not create a commission or task force to
investigate. Reagan's would-be assassin, John Hinckley Jr., survived. The FBI
and Secret Service did a detailed investigation of Hinckley's attempt and the Department
of Justice prosecuted him. In 1982, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of
insanity. He is a free man today.
Thirty days after the creation of the "Trump Task
Force," nine of the 14 task force members toured the Butler Farm Show
grounds and met with local law enforcement officials. The task force saw
firsthand the 430-foot gap between the rooftop, where 20-year-old Thomas
Matthew Crooks took aim, and the stage from which Trump was speaking.
Immediately following the tour, Reps. Kelly and Jason Crow
(D-Colo.), the top Democrat on the panel, sent a letter to Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr.
looking for details about the site selection and security planning the for the
ill-fated rally, reported Politico.
The only real modern parallel to the task force is the
President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, better known
as the Warren Commission, created in the aftermath of the tragic assassination
of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's assassin was killed, and there would be
no trial. The commission was headed by United State Supreme Court Chief Justice
Earl Warren and consisted of a six-member bipartisan panel including, among
others, future President Gerald R. Ford.
According to The Washington Post, the commission presented
their findings in a report to President Lyndon B. Johnson, within 10 months of
the assassination. The Warren Report consisted of 26 hearing volumes. The
commission found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was
part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate Kennedy. The
Commission found no evidence of conspiracy, subversion or disloyalty to the
U.S. government by any federal, state or local official.
At the time, the report faced no real opposition, had
bipartisan support and, at least at its release, the full trust and faith of
the American people. It did not remain that way. More than 60 years later,
conspiracy theories abound.
On the 50th anniversary of the assassination, Donald E.
Wilkes Jr. of the University of Georgia School of Law wrote, "We must,
after 50 years, face the hair-raising, inescapable truth: The critics who
warned us about the Warren Report were right all along. The Report was a sham
which duped the American public while pretending to be based on a full,
no-holds-barred inquiry."
Today, some conservative lawmakers are determined to run a
parallel investigation into the attempt on Trump's life. Five conservative
House members recently held an event in Washington — at The Heritage Foundation
— vowing to push forward with their own probe into the assassination attempt.
They questioned security decisions leading up to the shooting and encouraged
whistleblowers to come forward.
The GOP-only shadow investigation will likely face an uphill
battle as it tries to run its own investigation, reported The New York Times.
In addition to the fact that the bipartisan task force holds superseding
authority, the conservative probe will have to rely on whistleblowers and
public information since it does not have subpoena power.
Unfortunately, a parallel investigation will do nothing but
sow distrust and spur divisiveness in an era of unceasing misinformation and
baseless theories of conspiracy.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on X @MatthewTMangino.
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