Lankford gives update on Trump's assassination attempt, what's happening in D.C.

The public had the opportunity to ask United States Senator James Lankford questions during the Government Affairs Community Town Hall event at Go Ye Village Thursday, Aug. 22.

Lankford opened the forum, which was hosted by the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce, introducing himself and updating attendees with what's happening in Washington D.C.

"Between now and the election in November, Congress will be in session [for] three weeks. That's it, they will be in session three weeks. Now that happens on presidential years, every four years and I will tell you - you should be glad of that because right now it is wall-to-wall politics in [Washington D.C.]," Lankford said.

He added that they will pass an extension on the 2018 Farm Bill, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, while they are in session in September.

Tahlequah resident Cathy Cott asked Lankford the first question of the evening and she wanted to know why the senator voted against his own immigration bill. Lankford said he didn't vote against it but voted for it.

"When that bill came up - you're right - I did work on that bill for four months. I worked across the aisle with a guy named Chris Murphy, who's a progressive from Connecticut and with Kyrsten Sinema, who's in independent from Arizona. We worked on it to get that bill done," he said.

However, Lankford said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer brought the bill back up two months later to try to "embarrass" Republicans and Lankford voted against it at the time.

"When it came up as a 'show vote' two months later, I did," he said.

Lankford, who serves on the Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, said border threats have shifted with more illegal crossings under President Joe Biden than any other president in American history

"We've had over 10 million people in just the first three years under President Biden that have crossed the border illegally. To give you an example, that's 2.5 million people a year that they know of and compare that to President [Barack Obama], it was half a million people a year. So the numbers are exceptionally growing," he said.

He added that the shift in numbers of people coming into the country were now from China, Russia, Pakistan, India, West Africa, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

"They're not just coming from Guatemala and Honduras anymore," he said. "Two months ago, eight ISIS-affiliated terrorists were picked up and arrested in America that have come across our southern border through that same group," he said.

Lankford said changes to the bill included emergency authority, meaning that the border would be shut down if it was overrun with illegal crossings.

"The first person that crossed the border everyday was arrested, was quickly screened, and was deported. The very first person, everyday, all day long, but if you got up to 5,000 people crossing the border - we don't have enough staff to handle that. Instead of arrest, screen, deport - when you get to 5,000 - it was just arrest, deport. there was no screening. We just turned you around," he said.

He said his liberal colleagues considered that "unfair" as someone would be turned away if they came to the border when there was a higher number of crossings.

"My statement to them was, 'If we are overwhelmed with people coming and we don't have time to screen, I don't want to try to explain to somebody why their child was killed by a terrorist because we were overwhelmed that day,'" he said. "I would rather turn them around and protect Americans than just let them in and hope it turned out OK."

When it came time to vote, Lankford said the disagreement he has with Trump is, the former president is running for office and considers this issue to be biggest issue of the election.

"He basically said, 'Don't solve it, let me solve it after the election is over, don't take that issue away.' My response was, 'I understand you've got a job, you're running for office, but I have a job, I'm in office and I've got to do my job and my job is National Security,'" he said.

An attendee asked the senator about a roundtable discussion he had hosted with other Republicans senators, wherein it was mentioned that the Oklahoma contractor Cherokee Federal, the Biden Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services were accused of practices involving child trafficking of migrant children.

"I've done some follow up on that and here's the tough part for Cherokee Federal, Cherokee Federal was drawn into this and they don't actually do the selection of where those kids go. HHS, they actually do the final selection. Cherokee Federal had a contract - they don't have a contract anymore for taking care of kids - but the contract they had was to be able to take care of kids," Lankford said.

He said it was unfair that Cherokee Federal was included in that discussion by some of his colleagues since HHS is the one making the final selection on where these migrant children go.

"There's still work that's being done because I have lots of questions because right now we have a lot of kids that have been placed by HHS in places we don't have any idea where those kids are. We've got human trafficking that is going on and HHS is not following up on some of those. We have individuals that are taking kids that we don't know their criminal history at all," he said.

Another attendee asked the senator for additional information on Trump's assassination attempt and Lankford said he's been involved in those conversations as the Homeland Security Committee has oversight with the U.S. Secret Service.

He provided a lengthy timeline of what transpired before, during, and after the rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Authorities have learned that the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, researched specific facts about President John F. Kennedy's assassination after he registered for the rally. He said Crooks was able to fly a drone inside the perimeter of where the rally took place.

Lankford said Crooks was a "super smart loner, isolated kid," who used to shoot firearms with his father.

"He used his dad's rifle three different times between July 3 when the rally was announced and actually.. three different times he went to the range with his dad to practice shooting with that rifle. Then the day of the rally, he didn't tell his dad he was going to the rally, he told his dad he wanted to go back to the range and shoot again and went and got the rifle and his dad said, 'sure' since they had just gone the day before," Lankford said.

Trump took the stage several minutes after Secret Service began tracking 20-year-old Crooks, who they deemed as a "suspicious person" at the time.

"The Secret Service totally messed this up. This was complacency for them rather than conspiracy. We've been digging a lot on this [and] there were so many mistakes that they made," Lankford said.

The senator said the Secret Service made the perimeter too small and Acting Director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. went to the site shortly after the shooting and asked, "How did we miss this?"

"It goes back to, there's so many people in this process that made mistakes, they were just complacent because Trump rallies have always been energetic, lots of good people that are showing that just love America and they just got complacent," he said.

Former Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her post a day after giving her initial testimony before members of Congress.

On Aug. 23, it was announced that multiple Secret Service agents were placed on administrative leave.