Kimberley Cheatle, the head of the U.S. Secret Service admitted that the agency had failed. “The assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on July 13 is the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades,” Cheatle told the House of Representatives Oversight Committee. She also took full responsibility. “The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed. As a director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency,” she said.
The Director of the Secret Service, Kimberley Cheatle, came under heavy fire from both Democrats and Republicans. Her answers (or lack of them) frustrated lawmakers. The testimony went on four about four hours, at one point, the Head of the Oversight Committee James Comer actually told Cheatle, “You’ve answered more questions with the ABC reporter than you have done with members of Congress.”
Republican lawmaker Nancy Mace tore into the Secret Service and its lapses on July 13. “Would you like to use my 5 minutes to draft your resignation letter? Yes or no?,” she asked Cheatle. In response to one of Mace’s questions, Cheatle confirmed that no heads had rolled in the Secret Service after the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump. “You’re full of sh*t today. You are being completely dishonest,” snapped Mace at one point.
It wasn’t just the Republicans who asked for Cheatle to step down. Ro Khanna of the Democratic Party said, “You cannot go leading a Secret Service agency when there is an attack on a Presidential candidate. You need to resign.” Khanna reminded Cheatle that the head of the Secret Service Stewart Knight had resigned in 1981 when there was an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. Marjorie Taylor Greene added, “You’ve been sitting here for over three hours and the entire country is demanding that you resign or you be fired if you do not resign.”
If many answers flustered lawmakers, there were some that shocked them too. When Greene asked the Secret Service chief if she had a timeline for the day the assassination attempt took place, her response was, ” I have a timeline that does not have the specifics.” Lawmaker Nancy Mace moved a motion to impeach Kimberley Cheatle after her testimony.
