Carlos Gimenez

Search for answers on Trump assassination attempt ramps up

In a rare moment of unity, both Democrats and Republicans are coming together to uncover the security failures which led to the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. On Monday, while Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle appeared in front of another House committee, a group of congressmen from the House Homeland Security Committee visited the site in Butler, Pennsylvania, to get a firsthand hold of what really happened that day. The trip was led by Chairman Mark Green on Monday as part of the bipartisan effort to investigate how the gunman, Thomas Crooks, gained access to the roof from which he shot Trump. The visit only yielded more questions — why were warnings about the suspicious sightings ignored? Why were the perimeters not secured?

fbi assassination

Could Kevin McCarthy return as speaker?

There’s an easy way out of the chaos in the House, led by a Florida man who’s leaning on lessons learned in his decades as a firefighter and basketball player: Representative Carlos Giménez, the general leading the Only Kevin charge. For some in Congress, the literal Only Kevin pins they wore back in January were as ephemeral as a Nancy Mace promise. But for Giménez, it’s about refusing to reward bad behavior and about loyalty to the man who recruited him to run for his current job. “There was an injustice done” in Giménez’s eyes, he tells me in his Capitol Hill office. “I think that the 96 percent [of House Republicans who voted to keep McCarthy last week] bent to rule of the 4 [percent]. Everybody talks about the majority here.

carlos giménez