“The assassination attempt of former President Trump on July 13 is the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades” Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told the House Oversight Committee in her opening statements on Monday during a hearing on the assassination attempt on the former President Donald Trump.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed,” said Cheatle.
In the hearing, Cheatle took significant criticism for the inadequacies of the Secret Service protection on July 13, and for her decision not to resign. “I don’t understand how you can continue to stay in the position you’re in, when this was a failure of historic magnitude. 43 years without anything like this happening and you failed, in this case, in a spectacular way.” Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) told Cheatle.
Issues such as potential partisanship in the FBI also played a role in the hearing. “We need to have confidence that if the FBI is leading this investigation, that they’re leading a credible investigation, because there’s some of us sitting up here today that don’t have a lot of confidence in the FBI,” Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the committee chairman, told Cheatle.
The question of a potential second shooter was also raised by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). “Was Mr. Crooks acting alone?” he asked. “Was he just a lone gunman?” Cheatle referred Rep. Biggs to the FBI’s investigation.
Republicans weren’t alone in posing hard questions to Cheatle. “How can a 20 year old with his father’s AR-15 assault weapon climb onto a roof with a direct 150 yard line of sight to the speaker’s podium without the Secret Service or local police stopping him?” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking Democratic committee member, asked.
“So again, sir, I will say we are nine days out from this event, and I would like to know those answers again, which is why we are going through these investigations to determine that fully,” she replied.
Even some stalwart progressives took a critical bent towards Cheatle. “Stuart Knight was in charge of the Secret Service [when Reagan was shot]. Do you know what he did afterwards?” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) asked Cheatle, to which Cheatle responded “he remained on duty.” Khanna reminded Cheatle, “He resigned.”
“If you have an assassination attempt on a President, former President, or a candidate, you need to resign,” Khanna said later.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) took an even more confrontational tack. “So which is it, were you guessing or lying when you said you didn’t turn down requests from President Trump’s detail?” Jordan asked, contrasting earlier statements from the Secret Service claiming that the Trump campaign had not requested more security to a Washington Post report that the Secret Service had turned down requests from the Trump team for greater security.
“What a change from absolutely false, unequivocally false, to ‘oh, by the way, there were some times where we didn’t give them what they wanted,” Jordan said.
Cheatle also told the Committee that the Secret Service’s internal investigation seeks to complete in around 60 days. This deadline was described as inadequate by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Legislators from both sides of the aisle also called for Cheatle to resign, including both Comer and Raskin. “This committee is not known for its bipartisanship, but I think today we came together unanimously in our disappointment for your lack of answers,” Comer told Cheatle at the end of the hearing. “As ranking member Raskin stated, he and I will be sending a letter requesting that you submit your resignation” Comer elaborated later, expressing bipartisan support for Cheatle’s resignation.
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