‘We failed’: Secret Service director grilled in hearing on Trump assassination attempt

Washington: Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said her agency failed in its mission to protect former president Donald Trump, as lawmakers of both major political parties demanded her resignation over security failures that allowed a gunman to scale a roof and open fire at a campaign rally.

During a highly contentious congressional hearing, Cheatle was berated for hours by Republicans and Democrats, repeatedly angering representatives by evading questions about the investigation during the first hearing over the July 13 assassination attempt.

US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle appears before a Congress committee hearing.Credit: AP

Cheatle called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, vowing to “move heaven and earth” to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure there’s no repeat of it.

“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed,” she told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.

Cheatle acknowledged that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. She also revealed that the roof from which Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally. Cheatle said she apologised to Trump in a phone call after the assassination attempt.

Yet Cheatle remained defiant that she was the “right person” to lead the Secret Service, even as she said she takes full responsibility for the security lapses. When Republican Nancy Mace suggested Cheatle begin drafting her resignation letter from the hearing room, Cheatle responded: “No, thank you.”

Texas Republican Representative Pat Fallon questions US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.Credit: AP

In a rare moment of unity for the often-divided committee, the Republican chairman, James Comer, and its top Democrat, Jamie Raskin, issued a letter calling on Cheatle to step down.

The White House didn’t immediately comment on whether President Joe Biden still has confidence in Cheatle after her testimony.

Democrats and Republicans were united in their exasperation as Cheatle said she didn’t know or couldn’t answer numerous questions, more than a week after the shooting that left one spectator dead. At one point, Mace used profanity as she accused Cheatle of lying and dodging questions, prompting calls for lawmakers to show “decorum”.

Lawmakers pressed Cheatle on how the gunman could get so close to the Republican presidential nominee when he was supposed to be carefully guarded, and why Trump was allowed to take the stage after local law enforcement had identified Crooks as suspicious.

“It has been 10 days since an assassination attempt on a former president of the United States. Regardless of party, there need to be answers,” said Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Cheatle acknowledged that Crooks was seen by local law enforcement before the shooting with a rangefinder, a small device resembling binoculars that hunters use to measure distance from a target.

She said the Secret Service would never have taken Trump onto the stage if it had known there was an “actual threat”. Local law enforcement took a photo of Crooks and shared it after seeing him acting suspiciously, but he wasn’t deemed to be a “threat” until seconds before he opened fire, she said.

“An individual with a backpack is not a threat,” Cheatle said. “An individual with a rangefinder is not a threat.”

Cheatle said local enforcement officers were inside the building from which Crooks fired. But when asked why there were no agents on the roof or if the Secret Service used drones to monitor the area, Cheatle said she was still waiting for the investigation to play out, prompting groans and outbursts from members on the committee.

“Director Cheatle, because Donald Trump is alive, and thank god he is, you look incompetent,” said Republican Mike Turner. “If he were killed, you would look culpable.”

Ro Khanna, one of the Democrats who joined the calls for Cheatle to resign, noted that the Secret Service director who presided over the agency stepped down after there was an attempted assassination of then-president Ronald Reagan.

“The one thing we have to have in this country are agencies that transcend politics and have the confidence of independents, Democrats, Republicans, progressives and conservatives,” Khanna said, adding that the Secret Service was no longer one of those agencies.

Trump was wounded in the ear, a former Pennsylvania fire chief was killed and two other attendees were injured when Crooks opened fire with an AR-style rifle shortly after Trump began speaking.

Cheatle said the agency hopes to complete its internal investigation in 60 days. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has separately appointed a bipartisan, independent panel to review the assassination attempt, while the department’s inspector general has opened three investigations.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan delegation of about a dozen members of the House Committee on Homeland Security toured the shooting site on Monday. The lawmakers said they were the first group outside law enforcement to climb onto the roof where the shooter positioned himself.

Authorities have been hunting for clues into what motivated Crooks but have not found any ideological bent that could help explain his actions.

An aerial view of the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate former president Donald Trump.Credit: Kristian Thacker/The New York Times

Investigators who searched his phone found photos of Trump, Biden and other senior government officials. They found that he had looked up the dates for the Democratic National Conventional, as well as Trump’s appearances, and also searched for information about major depressive disorder.

The attack on Trump was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since 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.

Cheatle took over two years ago as head of the Secret Service’s 7800 special agents, uniformed officers and other staffers whose main purpose is protecting presidents, vice presidents, their families, former presidents and others.

AP

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