The independent panel dubbed the “J13 Forum,” in a nod to the day the assassination attempt occurred in July, held its first hearing on Monday and focused on the failures of federal agencies to act quickly in the moments leading up to the shooting. The hearing coincided with the first press conference of the official task force, which was created by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to have sole jurisdiction over House investigations into the attempt on Trump’s life.

Crane underscored the importance of a separate investigation and said the bipartisan task force was “political in its forming” based on the members who were tapped for the panel. Crane cited at least three snipers in Congress who were overlooked for the committee, including himself, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), and Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX). 

Instead, he said, leadership chose members from across the ideological spectrum, a move he said would negatively affect who gets brought before the task force to testify.

“That tells you all you need to know,” Crane said. “So if you start working your way out from that, it was politically put together.”

He suggested the panel would be reluctant to invite witnesses who “might say some things that could ruffle some feathers.”

One such example is Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service special agent who testified before the J13 Forum on Monday and openly questioned whether politics played a role in the security failures by the federal agency.

Bongino, a conservative commentator, said there may have been some political bias by law enforcement and argued that an “advanced security posture” typically provided to presidential candidates “would have made him look more presidential.”

“I think they were concerned about optics and making him ‘Worldwide Big Shot,’” Bongino said, “and they were making some of these decisions based purely on grade school-level politics.”

That suggestion emerged as a key theme among lawmakers on the panel, who used the hearing to question whether there may have been malicious intent behind the security shortcomings, though no evidence of ill intent has yet been produced, either by the official House panel or FBI investigation into the shooting.

“The question here is whether this was your run-of-the-mill government incompetence or whether you see features of just disregard for the duty at hand, that there’s some malice,” firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said during the hearing.

The tenor of the hearing was driven, in part, by the fact that its members are some of the former president’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill. By contrast, the official task force, made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats, emphasized bipartisanship and a methodical, slower approach to investigating the assassination attempt.

A spokesperson for the official task force did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

“I don’t know what they’re going to ask, but I hope they’re willing to ask questions that might even seem a bit unconventional because the American people have a lot of unconventional questions,” Crane said of the official panel. “They have questions that are often uncomfortable to ask, but we’re their representatives, so we got to ask them.”

The J13 Forum is expected to continue holding hearings over the coming months, Mills said Monday, although it’s not yet clear when the group may produce its findings or a final report.