U.S. Sen. Lankford, group of lawmakers confront SS director at RNC

Oklahoma’s senior U.S. Senator James Lankford and other republican lawmakers confronted the director of the Secret Service at the Republican National Convention.

Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn posted the video on social media.

You can see a group of people surrounding SS Director Kimberly Cheatle. They asked her questions about the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

In the video, Director Cheatle tried to walk away, but the group followed her.

“This was an assassination attempt, you owe the people answers, you owe President Trump answers,” one could be heard saying.

FOX23 spoke with Lankford who said this was an attempt to get answers after Saturday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Before that confrontation between the secret service director and several lawmakers, Lankford said the director answered questions online in front of hundreds of lawmakers but disconnected after only five questions.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said they just want answers and they’re willing to take legal action to get them.

Cheatle said the RNC was not the time nor place to have such discussions.

FOX23 spoke with Lankford on Thursday over Zoom while he was at the RNC in Milwaukee.

“When we found out she was in the building, we wanted to get the chance to be able to talk with her and say ‘Hey there’s still a lot of questions we want to go through.’ We weren’t combative with her and she just wouldn’t answer the questions,” Lankford said.

Questions regarding the assassination attempt of a former president.

“I would not only call it a failure from the Secret Service, but I would say it’s an enormous failure. Yes you’ve made major mistakes on this, now how do we hold people accountable, how do we make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Lankford said.

Lankford said the Secret Service knew about a suspicious person in the area before the rally began.

“The Secret Service should say to the President, ‘Let’s pause for five or 10 minutes until we find this individual that is definitely doing something very suspicious before we start the rally’. But instead of doing that, they just put him right on the stage. So, they knew someone was in the crowd that was a threat and didn’t do anything about it, that’s the biggest issue right now,” Lankford said.

Lankford believes the director should resign.

“I do believe the secret service director should resign, I think she should make her testimony, say this is what occurred, major mistakes were made, I know the American people have lost trust in the leadership and direction, and then to be able to step away,” Lankford said.

The U.S. Senate is having hearings all next week, including the Homeland Security Committee, which Lankford is on.

They expect to have Cheatle at these hearings answering questions.

If she doesn’t, Lankford said she could be subpoenaed and then held in contempt of Congress.