WASHINGTON: US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle acknowledged on Monday that the agency failed in its mission to prevent the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders,” Cheatle said during testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. “On July 13, we failed,” she said. “As director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse.” But she rejected a wave of bipartisan calls for her resignation.
Cheatle said the attack on Trump, who was slightly wounded in his right ear while speaking at a campaign rally, was “the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades.” “There clearly was a mistake and we will make every effort to make sure that this never happens again,” she said.
The 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire on Trump with an AR-style assault rifle just minutes after the former Republican president and current White House candidate began speaking at the campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania.Crooks, who was perched on the roof of a nearby building with a clear sightline of the stage, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper 26 seconds after firing the first of eight shots.
Opening the hearing into the assassination bid, Republican committee chairman James Comer said “this tragedy was preventable” and “it is my firm belief, Director Cheadle, that you should resign.””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, adding the agency “has now become the face of incompetence.”
Representative Michael Turner, a Republican lawmaker from Ohio, also called on Cheatle to step down. “Not only should you resign but if you refuse to do so, President (Joe) Biden needs to fire you because his life, Donald Trump’s life, and all the other people who you protect are at risk,” Turner said. Cheatle rebuffed the demands she resign. “I think that I am the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time,” she said.
Cheatle declined to answer many specific questions from lawmakers about the attack, saying it was still the subject of multiple active investigations.
Trump’s former physician said over the weekend that the Republican candidate sustained a two-centimeter (almost one inch) gunshot wound on his right ear that is starting to heal. The memo from ex-White House physician Ronny Jackson, now a hardline right-wing lawmaker from Texas, is the first detailed account of the injury Trump sustained.