A day after a House committee grilled her for shocking failures that led to the near-assassination of former President Donald Trump, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned in disgrace.
Her departure comes as questions surround the July 13 attempt on the GOP presidential candidate’s life by a 20-year-old gunman who was able to climb up on a roof and get off several rounds before being killed by a Secret Service sniper.
Cheatle’s resignation was first reported by NBC News. Her departure comes amid a whirlwind of events, culminating on Sunday with a post on X announcing that President Joe Biden is withdrawing as the Democrats’ candidate for president. Vice President Kamala Harris is poised to replace Biden on the November ballot.
‘We Failed’
Cheatle struggled — more so, outright refused — to answer pointed questions from House Oversight and Accountability Committee members at Monday’s hearing about how such an extraordinary lapse in protection could occur. In her opening statements, the disgraced director acknowledged her agency had failed.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed,” she told the committee. “As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse. We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. We must learn what happened.”
But there was little evidence at Monday’s hearing that the embattled agency and Biden administration officials are “fully cooperating.” Cheatle’s failure to answer or defer answering committee questions, coupled with the agency’s refusal to turn over critical documents to Congress, has only raised concerns that the Secret Service’s many security failures were caused by more than incompetence — they were willful.
“After leaving the oversight briefing this morning, I’m more convinced than ever that [would-be assassin Timothy Matthew] Crooks wasn’t working alone,” U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a member of the Oversight committee, wrote on her X account.
In a particularly heated exchange with U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Cheatle lamely attempted to defend some of the agents’ glaring failures to stop a killer.
“An individual with a backpack is not a threat. An individual with a range finder is not a threat,” the Secret Service chief told Greene. “Once that individual was identified, they were neutralized,” she added, glossing over some important facts from the deadly events.
Greene shot back, “Brooks was neutralized after he shot President Trump in the face, Ms. Cheatle. Is he only a threat once he fires a weapon?”
A Series of Troubling Events
Just as Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was getting underway, the gunman shot the former president in the ear as Trump miraculously turned his head to look at a document a fraction of a second before the bullet struck. Trump escaped assassination by a fraction of an inch. The gunman killed firefighter Corey Comperatore and seriously wounded two other rallygoers.
Greene and her colleagues noted what we now know: the killer was able to position himself and a gun on the roof of a building less than 150 yards away from the former president’s head. The building was not included in the Secret Service’s security perimeter. Agents allowed Trump to take the stage after local law enforcement warned of a suspicious person at the rally. The suspicious individual turned out to be the shooter.
Crooks also was able to fly a drone around the rally site before the event, law enforcement officials confirmed. Snipers spotted Crooks on the roof 20 minutes before he fired his first rounds, lawmakers and law enforcement officials said.
‘A Coverup’
An obtuse statement ostensibly from Biden praised Cheatle for her “decades of public service.”
“She has selflessly dedicated and risked her life to protect our nation throughout her career in the United States Secret Service,” the statement asserts. “We especially thank her for answering the call to lead the Secret Service during our Administration and we are grateful for her service to our family.”
Cheatle worked the security detail for Jill Biden when Biden served as vice president. Cheatle and the first lady reportedly were good friends.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, promised “more accountability to come.”
“The Secret Service has a no-fail mission yet it failed historically on Director Cheatle’s watch,” Comer said in a statement, issued on X. “While Director Cheatle’s resignation is a step toward accountability, we need we need a full accounting of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward. We will continue our oversight of the Secret Service in support of the House Task Force to deliver transparency, accountability, and solutions to ensure this never happens again.”
Greene was more direct.
“On her last day on the job in @GOPoversight, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle participated in a cover up of the assassination attempt of President Trump. Cheatle has resigned, but she may face criminal investigations for her role on 7/13 & her response in the days after,” the congresswoman wrote on her X account.
Trump said good riddance to an incompetent Secret Service director.
“She never gave me a proper protection so I ended up having to take a bullet for democracy,” Susan Crabtree, RealClearPolitics White House national political correspondent reported on X.
