The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general has completed a report on Secret Service missteps during the Capitol crisis 3 ½ years ago but is refusing to release it.
As Congress turns its attention to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life, a key House investigator vowed Monday to issue a subpoena to force the disclosure of a long-delayed report on an earlier Secret Service failure to detect a bomb that could have jeopardized Kamala Harris’ life the morning of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general has completed a report on Secret Service missteps during the Capitol crisis 3 ½ years ago but is refusing to release it even though footage Just the News published a year ago shows Secret Service agents took then Vice President-elect Harris within 10 yards of an undetected explosive device planted at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said.
“We need to get this … report. We need to see it,” Loudermilk told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “And it needs to happen soon because we just created a task force to look at it. And … I think there’s important information there.”
Asked whether he was prepared to issue a subpoena, Loudermilk answered: “Absolutely.” He said he could like to coordinate the records demand with the new task force appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson to probe the July 13 Trump assassination attempt.
“Maybe coming from two fronts will cause them to break it loose,” he said,
The Georgia Republican is the chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight that has been probing extensive security and intelligence failures that preceded the Jan. 6 tragedy.
Loudermilk last week sent a letter accusing Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of holding up the release of two reports by the inspector general, the agency’s independent watchdog, including the one entitled “United States Secret Service Preparation for and Response to the Events of January 6, 2021.”
“We are aware that the Secret Service has reviewed and cleared this report. Therefore, you alone are preventing the DHS OIG from releasing this report to Congress,” Loudermilk said. “Given the events of July 13, 2024, yet another security failure by the U.S. Secret Service (“USSS”) to detect and prevent a serious threat to a protectee, there is absolutely no justification for your delay.”
In the podcast interview, Loudermilk said the delays are not only hurting the American public’s ability to learn about the failure to detect the Jan. 6 bomb, they also are intruding on the legally required independence of the Homeland inspector general and may amount to a coverup.
“They’re supposed to be independent, but look at what’s happened to this IG. Even the organization that oversees IGs has started an investigation into this Inspector General. It’s the weaponization that we see. If you go off the rails of what the Democrats want you to do, they’re coming after you personally.
“And I believe that’s what’s happened in this investigation is he was a Trump appointee. He’s trying to get to the truth. And what they do to try to stall him is launch an investigation into him,” Loudermilk said.
Loudermilk said the documented failure to detect the bomb may have been a premonition of the failures the Secret Service displayed during the assassination.
“That was a major failure of the Secret Service. An agent with a bomb dog walks by the pipebomb that was left to be discovered. … And then they bring Kamala Harris close to it as they’re bringing her out of the building. Okay, these are major failures that should never happen,” he said.
“And then when you turn the clock forward to July 13, … and you see what happened to Donald Trump: another major failure where you failed to secure probably what looks like the best vantage point for a sniper to be,” he added.
Loudermilk said he believes the IG report on Jan. 6 failures contains new information on why the Service missed the bomb that could be relevant to the large issue of presidential security.
“I think that he may have uncovered some areas in the Secret Service that were never addressed. And that could have led to the problems that we saw on July 13,” Loudermilk said.
Loudermilk also reacted to a new Just the News story published Monday based on his panel’s investigation that revealed that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top two security officials were warned the night before the Capitol riot that there was new intelligence suggesting protesters might try to breach the Capitol through its tunnel system and confront lawmakers.
The warnings went the night of Jan. 5, 2021, from the Capitol Police to the Sergeant at Arms and his deputy, who then arranged for a briefing the next morning with Pelosi’s chief of staff, Terri McCullough.
Loudermilk said he was concerned that Republicans didn’t get a warning and that the intelligence didn’t appear to get to top police official in Congress either.
“It’s going to the Pelosi staff, but we don’t see that it’s being sent to the (Capitol) chief of police. And so I’m not saying it is. But there’s appearance that they were bypassing the chief of police,” he said. “Why would you not go to the chief of police? It tells me that they knew what the chain of command was. And it was a political chain.
“They knew who was really responsible, and they needed to get the OK from Pelosi’s office before any security decision was really made,” he added.
