Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called for new leadership of the Secret Service and said “the buck definitely stops” with the leader of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.
His comments come following a new bipartisan Senate report detailing leadership failings from the agency after the first assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
“The buck definitely stops with the head of the agency, the Department of Homeland Security, Alexander Mayorkas, has to take charge clean house, replace this leadership and provide full disclosure, which so far, DHS has been blocking,” Blumenthal told CNN.
Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who is leading the subcommittee’s investigation, said that there had clearly been a lack of leadership and the top management of the Secret Service needs to be replaced.
Meanwhile, Senate Homeland Security chairman Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan, and ranking member Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, also highlighted the lack of accountability from Secret Service from the report.
“We had bipartisan, unanimous support that the assassination could have been prevented, that there were multiple failures of the Secret Service, and that things have to be better,” Paul told reporters on Wednesday morning.
Paul called for firings within the agency and argued that the increased funding for the Secret Service included in the government funding extension will not solve the problem. Peters, however, said that they should hold off on firings until they have more information.
The chairman also noted that this is an interim report – and stressed that a full report will come later.
This post has been updated with additional reporting.