Kimberly Cheatle plans to resign from her post as director of the US Secret Service after facing pressure from lawmakers who called on her to step down. trying to kill from former President Donald Trump.
Four sources familiar with the matter confirmed Cheatle’s plans to resign.
Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 when a gunman opened fire from the roof of a building overlooking the crowd and stage. The gunman, later identified as 20 years old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, kill one participant and wounded two others.
Trump was wounded by a bullet that grazes his right ear. He appeared several times at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee the following week with a bandage over his ear.
The Secret Service quickly came under scrutiny, with questions about how an assassination attempt could have occurred at such a high-profile event. Security and law enforcement officers from several different agencies were present at the rally and, according to several sources, alerted the suspect. as early as 20 minutes before the shots were actually fired.
Cheatle said the Secret Service is responsible for organizing and managing overall security protocols for public meetings, and when he testified before Congress on July 22, he admitted it was a “significant operational failure.”
“Secret Service’s solemn mission to protect the leaders of our nation. On July 13th, we failed,” he said.
Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images
After testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Chairman James Comer and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin issued a joint statement calling for Cheatle’s resignation.
Calls for Cheatle’s resignation began to grow as details about the shooting emerged in the days after the rally, with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joining other Republican voices, including Eric Trump, the former president’s son, and several Democrats, including . Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who sits on the oversight committee.
At the Republican National Convention, days after the shooting, a chaotic scene unfolded as a group of Republican senators, including Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, followed Cheatle through the convention center and barraged him with questions.
“The American people deserve answers from the Secret Service,” Blackburn wrote in a social media post, where he also shared a video of the encounter.
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee officially called Cheatle to testify about the assassination attempt days after the incident.
“Director Cheatle must answer to Congress and the American people for the historic failure that occurred on his watch,” a committee spokesman said.
In her testimony, Cheatle told lawmakers she was responsible.
But he refused to respond directly to specific questions about security and the circumstances surrounding the shooting – for example, why Trump was allowed to go on stage when law enforcement identified a suspect, or why there were no officers on the roof – raised the frustration of the panel members in both- both from the aisle.
Cheatle said he could not yet provide a detailed timeline of the events or how they happened, and repeatedly referred to the FBI’s criminal investigation when asked to discuss the gunman’s actions that led to the shooting.
Several investigations into the circumstances surrounding the shooting are underway. In addition to the FBI, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security has opened two probes to evaluate the Secret Service’s processes for securing events and determine the level of readiness of the agency’s Counter Sniper Team to respond to threats. Officials said the inspector general may want to open an additional investigation.
Meanwhile, President Biden announced that he would direct its review from the security situation of the public meeting to determine what went wrong.
Cheatle said in a statement after Mr. Biden’s announcement that the Secret Service would “participate fully” in an independent review and “work with all federal, state and local agencies to understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent something like this from happening.” it doesn’t happen again.”
Who is Kimberly Cheatle?
The president appointed Cheatle to be director of the Secret Service in 2022, after serving 27 years in other positions at the agency.
Prior to his appointment as director, Cheatle served as assistant director of the agency’s Office of Protection Operations, where he worked with various divisions, including Technical Security, “to research, develop and deploy technologies that reduce risk to protectees, protected facilities, and events protected,” according to the Secret Service. Cheatle was also a member of Mr. Biden’s security detail when he was vice president during the Obama administration.
Cheatle was working as senior director of global security at PepsiCo when Mr. Biden appointed him to lead the Secret Service, according to the agency.
Nicole Sganga contributed reporting.
