Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle announced her resignation after mounting pressure following the Donald Trump.
The agency’s failure to prevent the attempted assassination of the former president and the controversy over her testimony before Congress led to the end of her tenure.
Cheatle is only the second woman to serve as director of the Secret Service in its 159-year history – and was appointed to the role by President Joe Biden in 2021.
In a letter to staff, she said: “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that, I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director.”
Cheatle has been facing intense scrutiny and bipartisan backlash amid a flurry of probes over her agency’s security failures in the attempted assassination earlier this month.
Republican presidential nominee Trump was hit in the ear, while the shooter also killed a firefighter and critically injured two other attendees, which sparked calls for her to step down as director.
Cheatle testified before the House Oversight Committee on July 20th about what went wrong with the agency’s responsibility to protect Trump and whether she could maintain the position to make changes on how it prepares for and responds to threats.
During her hours-long congressional hearing, Cheatle acknowledged that she bears full responsibility for the Secret Service’s “security lapses” and failure to uphold their core mission in protecting the nation’s leaders.
While she accepted that the assassination attempt was the agency’s “most significant operational failure in decades,” she initially resisted calls to resign and also evaded questions probing into their failures to do their due diligence.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) asked Cheatle about the security failure at one point: “At any point Saturday did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof?”
And to add salt to the wound, top officials at the Secret Service reportedly acknowledged that it had denied Trump’s security details’ requests for additional resources and personnel at his events in the two years leading up to the shooting.
A tense exchange between Cheatle and some Republican lawmakers became one of many focal points for criticism.
Tenneessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett slammed Cheatle for being unable to answer straightforward questions and putting too much emphasis on the agency’s effort to hire more women, calling her a “DEI horror story.”
Cheatle, who is the second woman to serve as the Secret Service’s director, responded by saying the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” had little relation to the assassination attempt.
South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace also blasted Cheatle over not giving a clear answer about whether she will provide the committee documents they requested ahead of the hearing, saying that she is full of s**t” and “completely dishonest.”
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Details are still unfolding about signs of trouble the day of the assassination attempt, including the steps taken by the Secret Service and local authorities to secure a building that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, climbed.
Heartbreakingly. 50-year-old ex-firefighther chief, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two others were wounded during the shooting.
The Biden administration has directed an independent review of security at the rally. The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general has opened three investigations and congressional committees have launched others as calls mount for Cheatle to resign.
This assassination attempt is the first time a sitting or former US president has been shot since Ronald Reagan in 1981.
