(Radio Iowa) – U-S Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa met Monday in his Washington D-C office with Secret Service Director Sean Curran to discuss the weekend incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. A gunman tried to storm the dinner while President Trump was in attendance and shots were fired, though many questions remain about the suspect, security procedures, and how agents reacted to the threat.
“The Secret Service is going to review everything that they did,” Grassley says, “and if changes need to be made, changes will be made.” Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, also attended the briefing in Grassley’s office. Grassley, a Republican, posted Monday on X that the overall Secret Service response to the incident has been “swift and transparent.”
“There’s some things that we were told that they didn’t want us to repeat,” Grassley says, “but some of them was clarification of some of the things that weren’t clearly stated through the news media or on television.” Grassley says the Secret Service briefing lasted about a half hour, and he adds, “I commend their bravery.”
Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Marion, says there are two factors to address in the assassination attempts on the president. One is the venue for events. “When I look at the feasibility of holding events like this in the future and the argument that’s being made right now about the need for the ballroom at the White House, I think that it is a very valid argument, not just for the safety of the president and the cabinet, but for everybody in attendance,” Hinson says.
Hinson says the second issues is Democrats need to stop holding up funding for the Homeland Security Department. She says the Secret Service agents who stopped the threat Saturday are not being paid. “It’s a secure venue number one, and it’s making sure that our agencies have the training and the resources to be able to keep people safe,” she says. Hinson says that includes the safety of the president and those who are attending these types of events.
The man who’s in custody, 31-year-old Cole Allen of California, worked part-time as a teacher and game developer. Authorities say Allen was armed with a semi-automatic pistol and a shotgun. Charges against him include attempted assassination of the president.
