Secret service director questioned on Trump shooting
Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee peppered Kimberly Cheatle with hours of questions about the near assassination of Donald Trump but she offered few answers | WATCH THE FIERY SCENES
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle offered politicians few answers Monday about how a 20-year-old gunman was able to open fire on former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally, fuelling bipartisan anger and widespread calls for her resignation in the wake of what she acknowledged was a colossal security lapse.
Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee peppered Cheatle with hours of questions about the near assassination of Trump in Butler, Pa., the Secret Service’s most stunning failure since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
But the director, citing ongoing investigations, declined to address some of the most pressing concerns, including how gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks accessed a rooftop with a clear line of sight to Trump.
“Did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof?” the committee chairman, Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), asked.
“Sir, I’m sure, as you can imagine, that we are just nine days out from this incident, and there’s still an ongoing investigation,” Cheatle said, deflecting the question as politicians collectively groaned.
The director declined to answer questions about how the security perimeter was drawn for the rally, whether law enforcement swept the roof in advance or how many agents were assigned to the event, saying a review of the breakdown is ongoing.
“The No. 1 question everyone in America is wondering is, why was the roof left open? And after nine days, we should at least maybe have a bit of that information,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas) said.
How did a 20y/o loner with a week's advance notice get so close to assassinating President Trump?
— Rep. Pat Fallon (@RepPatFallon) July 22, 2024
Today's hearing with USSS Director Cheatle left us with even more questions than answers about her agency's incompetence. Her leadership has been marked by disgrace. pic.twitter.com/xGm4jmNLzG
“And when you come to this committee hearing and you don’t have anything to say about that, it’s very, very troubling.” Cheatle acknowledged that Crooks was identified as suspicious, with a rangefinder — which resembles binoculars that hunters use to measure distance to a target — and backpack, more than an hour before he opened fire at Trump’s rally. Pressed by politicians, she acknowledged that Secret Service agents had received multiple notifications of a person acting suspiciously.
“I don’t have an exact number to share with you today, but from what I’ve been able to discern, somewhere between two and five times there was some sort of communication about a suspicious individual,” Cheatle said.
The director declined to elaborate on those communications. She also declined to say whether authorities sought to approach Crooks after he was initially identified as suspicious.
In one revealing exchange, Cheatle suggested that the security team with Trump before he went on stage didn’t know that the former president was facing an active threat.
“If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out on the stage,” Cheatle said in response to a question from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., MD.).
Crooks fired at least six rounds from the roof of the American Glass Research building roughly 400 feet away from where Trump spoke, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving Trump with a graze wound to the ear. A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing Crooks, whose motive remains a mystery.
Much about the shooting remains unclear, with federal, state and local officials voicing at-times conflicting information about what transpired and who was responsible for different aspects of the security plan.
As the hearing progressed, a growing chorus of politicians said they didn’t have confidence in Cheatle’s leadership or ability to keep protectees safe. Republican leaders last week had already called for Cheatle to step down. On Monday, Democrats joined them.
Raskin, the top Democrat on the panel, called the session “an unusually depressing hearing” and said he would join in calling for Cheatle’s ouster.
“This relationship is irretrievable at this point,” Raskin said. “And I think that the director has lost the confidence of Congress at a very urgent and tender moment in the history of the country, and we need to very quickly move beyond this.” Some politicians expressed disbelief that Crooks hadn’t been identified as a threat sooner. Cheatle said she believed Crooks transitioned from being seen as suspicious to threatening only “seconds before the gunfire started.” When pressed on the timeline of events by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), Cheatle said she didn’t have all the answers. She also said she couldn’t address what happened after rallygoers alerted authorities of Crooks going up the roof with a rifle.
“I’m not certain at this time how the information from the people in the crowd was relayed to any law-enforcement personnel,” she said.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.) likened Cheatle’s performance to that of the leaders of elite universities who in a December House hearing equivocated on whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people violated the campus code of conduct, and were eventually pressed to resign. “Did you see that hearing?” Moskowitz said. “Well, let me tell you, it didn’t go well. And the short end of that story was, those university professors all resigned. They’re gone. That’s how this is going for you.” Politicians expressed ongoing concern about rising political violence in the U.S., as authorities have said they expect to see more threats and attacks ahead of November’s presidential election. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said threats of politically motivated violence, already high, have spiked online since the assassination attempt.
“There need to be answers,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said. “This is not a moment of theatre. We have to make policy decisions, and we have to make them now.” Cheatle, who was making her first-ever appearance before Congress, has said she won’t resign, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has voiced full confidence in her. On Sunday, Mayorkas named former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other law-enforcement experts to conduct an independent, 45-day review of the attempted assassination.
The security lapse made Cheatle, 53 years old, something of a household name after she spent nearly 30 years at the agency in relative obscurity. She applied for the service right out of college and rose through the ranks in a series of roles. She served on the team of agents that secured Vice President Dick Cheney on Sept. 11, 2001. Cheatle later worked on Biden’s detail during his vice presidency and was assigned to his wife, Jill Biden.
She left the agency in 2021 for a private-sector stint at PepsiCo, but returned when President Biden tapped her as director in 2022.
Politicians have separately invited state and local law enforcement to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee. On Monday, members of that committee were set to visit the site of the July 13 rally.
The Wall Street Journal
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