Virginia Rep Blows Up When SS Director Won’t Blame ‘Assault Weapons’

While most lawmakers used Monday’s congressional hearing featuring now-former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to try to determine what exactly happened to allow a would-be assassin to shoot former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, one congressman twisted the hearing to push his anti-gun agenda.

Democrat U.S. Rep. Gerald Connelly of Virginia repeatedly tried to badger Cheatle into saying that if so-called “assault weapons” were banned it would make the agency’s job easier. And when she refused to say what he wanted her to, Connelly got visibly angry.

In a video detailing the exchange, Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, pointed out that Connelly is anti-gun to the point that he can’t think of hardly anything else.

“He’s frankly an embarrassment to the commonwealth,” Van Cleave said. “He should never, ever have been elected to Congress. And apparently he has some anger management issues.”

As Van Cleave explained, the rest of the congressmen were trying to get to the bottom of how Trump was ever in a position where somebody could get shots off at him—which was the purpose of the hearing.

“Those congressmen were worried about that, but no, not Jerry Connelly, no, no, no,” he said. “For him, it was all about guns. It’s hilarious how this turned out, watching him get red-faced when he wasn’t’ getting what he wanted from Ms. Cheatle.”

In the exchange, Connelly first asked Cheatle to agree with him by phrasing his question in a somewhat weird way that seemed to be sarcastic.

“There are some things my friends on one particular side of the aisle don’t really want to talk about, like AR-15s and access to them by a 20-year-old—or anybody for that matter,” Connelly said to Cheatle. “The ubiquity of guns in America, especially of assault weapons or semi-automatic weapons, has helped your job and the mission of your agency, right? It’s made it less complicated, isn’t that true?”

Of course, the question was so poorly framed that Cheatle didn’t understand what Connelly was asking. When she asked him to clarify the question, he took another, similarly confusing tact.

“Real simple: More guns—especially dangerous ones—have made your job of protecting people easier, right?” he asked.

As Van Cleave pointed out, “Here we see Gerry Connelly trying to be too smart by half. He’s trying to be clever in his wording. He’s trying to say, ‘Guns make security so much harder, especially people having AR-15s.’ He asked the question in a convoluted way, then he’s surprised when she doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying.”

When she tried to answer, Connelly interrupted her after about four words.

“Director Cheatle: It’s simple. More guns, do they make your job more complicated or less complicated in protecting these 36 clients and visiting heads of state and heads of government that come to Washington?” Connelly asked rudely.

As Cheatle continued to not answer the way he wanted, Connelly appeared to get angrier and angrier, asking the same question over and over again hoping she would capitulate. To her credit, Cheatle never agreed with his more guns, more danger assessment.

To watch the entire ridiculous exchange and Van Cleave’s entertaining analysis, click here.