U.S. lawmakers hammer Secret Service director over stunning lapses before Trump shooting
Kimberly Cheatle resists blunt calls to resign under intense questioning Monday
The director of the U.S. Secret Service took responsibility on Monday for staggering security lapses ahead of the assassination attempt on former U.S. president Donald Trump, but declined to answer questions directly, prompting frustrated lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to demand she step down.
Kimberly Cheatle, who resisted the calls to resign, told the House oversight and accountability committee on Monday that the shooting was the "most serious operational failure" by the Secret Service in more than four decades.
"The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders. On July 13th, we failed," Cheatle said, speaking in Washington, D.C., under subpoena.
"As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse."
The shooting at a rally in Butler, Pa., injured Trump's right ear, killed a local firefighter and injured two more attendees. Cheatle was hammered Monday with more than four hours of intense questioning focused on two blunt themes: how an attempt on the life of a former president and current candidate happened under her watch and whether she should keep her job.
Throughout her testimony, Cheatle repeatedly declined to provide specifics on security lapses or directly answer questions about agency tactics. She deferred instead to the ongoing FBI investigation or the Secret Service's internal investigation.
Committee members grew increasingly baffled by the refusal to provide clear answers, shaking their heads, laughing out loud and, at times, speaking over Cheatle and making their frustration clear with comments such as, "Why are you here?" and "Are you serious?"
"Because Donald Trump is alive ... you look incompetent," said Rep. Mike Turner, who called on President Joe Biden to fire Cheatle if she doesn't step down.
"If Donald Trump had been killed, you would've looked culpable."
In another exchange that captured the tone of the hearing, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace asked Cheatle if she wanted to use her allotted five minutes of question time to draft her resignation. Cheatle declined, and Mace's frustration soon boiled over.
"You're full of shit today," Mace said, prompting a brief reminder about decorum in the House. "You are being dishonest or lying. These are important questions that the American people want answers to and you're just dodging."
Cheatle did not respond.
Over the past several days, new information leaked by whistleblowers has revealed a number of staggering failures by law enforcement before Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, got a clear shot at Trump from a warehouse roof roughly 150 metres from the candidate's podium in Butler, Pa.
Cheatle said the warehouse was not included in the agency's established perimeter at the rally, despite being within range of an AR-15 and reportedly having been flagged days earlier as a point of vulnerability. She did not answer questions as to why the building was outside the secure zone — specifically as to why there was no agent stationed on the same roof as Crooks.
When pressed about a report in the Washington Post saying the gunman had flown a drone over the fairgrounds the day of the shooting, Cheatle said she could not say whether the Secret Service had conducted a similar flight.
She said she does not usually sign off on security plans personally, and did not do so for the rally.
Cheatle says she will not resign
Republican Rep. James Comer, chair of the oversight committee, said "this tragedy was preventable" and that he firmly believed Cheatle needs to step down.
"The Secret Service has a zero-fail mission, but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally," he said during his opening statement on Monday. "The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a significant budget, but it has now become the face of incompetence."
"Under Director Cheatle, we question whether anyone is safe. Not President Biden, not the First Lady, not the White House, not presidential candidates," Comer said.
Cheatle rebuffed calls to resign and said she would stay in her post to oversee an internal investigation.
"I think that I'm the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time," she said.
Cheatle acknowledged the agency has denied some requests by Trump's campaign for increased security at his events in the years before the assassination attempt. She said the service did not deny such a request for the Butler rally.
Before the shooting, local law enforcement had noticed Crooks pacing around the edges of the rally, peering into the lens of a rangefinder toward the rooftops behind the stage where the president later stood, officials have told The Associated Press. An image of Crooks was circulated by officers stationed outside the security perimeter.
Witnesses later saw him climbing up the side of a squat manufacturing building that was within 135 metres from the stage. He then set up his AR-style rifle and lay on the rooftop, a detonator in his pocket to set off crude explosive devices that were stashed in his car parked nearby.
A local firefighter was killed in the shooting and two more men were injured. Crooks was shot dead by the Secret Service.
Trump injuries still unclear
The Secret Service has a history of changing its tactics after catastrophic mistakes. After then-president John F. Kennedy was fatally shot in 1963, open-top motorcades became out of the question for the nation's leaders. After then-president Ronald Reagan was shot while walking back to his limousine in 1981, the service ended the practice of presidents simply walking down a sidewalk — everywhere they go must be cleared in advance.
Stuart Knight, the man who was director of the secret service at the time Reagan was shot, retired from the role by the end of the year.
The job of protecting the president was first assigned to the Secret Service in 1901, after then-president William McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, N.Y. Before that, the agency had been an anti-counterfeiting agency. Cheatle said the agency currently has 36 people under its protection.
Authorities have been hunting for clues into what motivated Crooks, but so far they have not found any ideological bent that could help explain his actions.
Investigators who searched his phone found photos of Trump, Biden and other senior government officials, and also found that he had looked up the dates for the Democratic National Conventional as well as Trump's appearances. He also searched for information about major depressive disorder.
Biden appointed Cheatle in late 2022.
Democrats and others have raised concerns about the lack of information released publicly about the shooting. The Secret Service did not take part in media briefings in the hours after the shooting, as the FBI and local law enforcement officials did.
She said the Secret Service's investigative report into the shooting is expected in 60 days — a deadline Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called "unacceptable." She said the American public needed answers to have confidence in the agency responsible for protecting its leaders, but lawmakers also needed information to respond appropriately.
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With files from The Associated Press and Alexander Panetta