Task force investigating Trump assassination attempt expands to include Florida incident • Iowa Capital Dispatch

WASHINGTON – U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday that a bipartisan task force created to investigate the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July will be expanded to include the suspected attack on the Republican presidential candidate's golf club in Florida that took place over the weekend.

“We in Congress have a responsibility to get to the bottom of this, to find out why these things are happening and what we can do about it,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said in a statement.

Johnson said he had spoken to the White House and urged that Trump receive the same protection from U.S. intelligence as a sitting president.

“He is under constant threat,” Johnson said of Trump.

While Trump was not injured in the second possible assassination attempt, he suffered an ear injury in a shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania in July.

“He's in the middle of a heated campaign, and that's an obvious thing we need to do now,” Johnson said. “In the meantime, Congress will do everything we can to make sure that happens. And one of the things we're going to do is expand the scope of the existing task force to cover the second assassination attempt.”

That task force, led by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, demanded Tuesday that the Justice Department and FBI brief lawmakers on the possible assassination attempt by Friday.

The suspect in the Florida incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, was charged in federal court on Monday with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and defacing the serial number of a firearm, court records show.

Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ron Rowe said Monday that Routh did not fire his weapon.

Rowe said that since the July 13 assassination attempt, U.S. intelligence has “helped further enhance the already heightened security situation for the former president.”

He added that President Joe Biden “has made it clear that he wants the greatest possible protection for former President Trump.”

“The Secret Service has taken steps to maintain its increased resources and the level of protection it seeks, and those measures were implemented yesterday,” Rowe said of Sunday's incident.