Freedom Caucus calls for blocking Bennie Thompson from Trump shooting task force

The House Freedom Caucus urged House leadership to keep Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) off the forthcoming task force to investigate the assassination attempt on former President Trump due to a bill he introduced that would have threatened Trump’s Secret Service protection.

In the official position released Wednesday, the hard-line conservative group also said Thompson should lose his status as ranking member on the panel.

The Freedom Caucus pointed to a bill Thompson led that would have stripped Secret Service protection detail for protectees who were sentenced for a felony conviction. It was an apparent nod to Trump, who was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in May and faces other felony charges relating to attempts to overturn the 2020 election results

“In April, Rep. Bennie Thompson launched an effort with other radical progressive Democrats to deny Secret Service protection to President Trump – legislation that he continues to defend even after the attempted assassination on July 13,” the Freedom Caucus said in a statement.

“We therefore urge the removal of Rep. Thompson as the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security,” the group continued. “Similarly, his actions should invalidate Rep. Thompson from serving on the task force to investigate the attempted assassination of President Trump. Americans cannot trust that he will be an unbiased arbiter of the facts in the effort to get to the bottom of the greatest failure of the Secret Service in more than three decades.”

A spokesperson for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) defended Thompson, saying he “has served the Congress and the country admirably, including as Chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol and the Homeland Security Committee.”

“Leader Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats will not be lectured by election denying, conspiracy peddling, anti-freedom extreme MAGA Republicans about any matter concerning the American people,” Jeffries spokesperson Christie Stephenson said. “Pipe down.”

Asked if he even wanted to be on the task force, Thompson told The Hill: “No.”

“I don’t even want to be on it,” Thompson said. “I’ve never expressed an interest.”

Updated at 11:38 a.m.