The director of the U.S. Secret Service told a House panel on Monday that her agency failed during the assassination attempt targeting former President Donald Trump.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed. As the Director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse,” Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told the House Oversight Committee in prepared remarks after she was subpoenaed, adding that the shooting was the “most significant operational failure in decades.”
During the July 13 incident at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a gunman fired at the former president, striking him in the right ear as well as killing one person and wounding two others.
“We must learn what happened and I will move heaven and earth to ensure an incident like July 13th does not happen again. Thinking about what we should have done differently is never far from my thoughts,” Ms. Cheatle said.
Her appearance before the panel occurred as numerous Republican lawmakers and at least one Democrat congressman have demanded that she resign from her position, saying that her agency did not do enough to provide security to the former president. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are among those who have called on Ms. Cheatle to step down.
The House Oversight panel’s chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), said Monday that the Secret Service underperformed in its “zero-fail mission,” saying there are questions that the agency “lacks the proper management” and also chided it for what he described as a lack of transparency. Instead of providing statements to the public, the Secret Service is delivering information through “whistleblowers” and “leaks” to the media, he said.
“It is my firm belief that ... you should resign,” Mr. Comer told the agency director at the start of the hearing on Monday morning. “I urge Director Cheatle to be transparent in her testimony today,” he added.
“I am the director of the Secret Service, and I need to make sure that we are performing a review and that we are giving resources to our personnel as necessary,” she told the network.
The attack on Trump was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It was the latest in a series of security lapses by the agency that has drawn investigations and public scrutiny over the years.
President Joe Biden has ordered an independent investigation. The Homeland Security Department and a bipartisan independent panel have said they are also investigating the matter.
Trump Says He Wasn’t Warned
In an interview over the weekend on Fox News, former President Trump said he was given no indication that law enforcement had identified a suspicious person when he took the stage in Pennsylvania. Some rallygoers said in interviews after the attempted assassination that they saw the gunman on the roof before the former president walked out onto the stage and had alerted law enforcement authorities on site.“They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 5 minutes, something.’ Nobody said. I think that was a mistake,” the former president said.
He also questioned the security lapses and how the gunman was able to access the roof of the building. “How did somebody get on that roof? And why wasn’t he reported? Because people saw that he was on the roof,” he said. “So you would’ve thought someone would’ve done something about it.”
Local law enforcement officers had seen the man and deemed him suspicious enough to put out an alert on a tactical channel and witnesses reported seeing him scaling the building.
After the shooting, the FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as the suspect. He was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper moments after he opened fire.
