WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has appointed a bipartisan, independent panel to review the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, officials said.

The July 13 shooting, at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania, resulted in a minor injury to Trump, serious injuries to two attendees and the death of another attendee.

Secret Service staff on site killed the shooter.

The panel members will have “extensive law enforcement and security experience to conduct a 45-day independent review of the planning for and actions taken by the U.S. Secret Service and state and local authorities before, during, and after the rally, and the U.S. Secret Service governing policies and procedures,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Sunday.

 

The first people named to the panel are:

  • Janet Napolitano, former Homeland Security Secretary.
  • Frances Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to President George W. Bush.
  • Mark Filip, a former federal judge and deputy attorney general to President George W. Bush.
  • David Mitchell, former Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security for the state of Delaware.

Additional experts may be asked to join the group in the coming days, the statement said.

The panel will have 45 days to review the policies and procedures of the Secret Service before, during and after the rally on July 13 where a gunman fired at Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“We formed this bipartisan group to quickly identify improvements the U.S. Secret Service can implement to enhance their work. We must all work together to ensure events like July 13 do not happen again,” members of the independent review panel said in a joint statement.

Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle, who is set to testify Monday before the House Oversight Committee, said she welcomes the review.

“I look forward to the panel examining what happened and providing recommendations to help ensure it will never happen again,” Cheatle said in a statement Sunday. “The U.S. Secret Service is continuing to take steps to review our actions internally and remain committed to working quickly and transparently with other investigations, including those by Congress, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.”

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