WASHINGTON – The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned on Tuesday following security failures regarding the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
Cheatle, who served as the Secret Service director since Aug. 2022, has faced widespread calls to step down after a gunman shot Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. According to her resignation letter sent to staff, Cheatle wrote that she takes “full responsibility for the security lapse.”
“In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director,” she wrote.
U.S. Representative Josh Brecheen (R-Coal County) has been one of the most vocal for investigating the Secret Service, writing on X about continuing to bring accountability for the attempted assassination.
“Glad to see that Director Cheatle has finally resigned,” Brecheen said. “Accountability starts at the top, but much more needs to be done to ensure what happened at the Trump rally in Butler, Penn. never happens again.”
Brecheen, alongside other members of the House Homeland Security Committee, even visited the site of former President Trump’s attempted assassination just one day before Cheatle’s resignation.
“Several of us, including a 70-year-old colleague, easily walked on the gently sloping roof where the shooter was stationed and ultimately killed,” Brecheen said in a statement. “U.S. Secret Service Director Cheatle’s excuses are ridiculous, she is not a credible leader.”
U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-Oklahoma City), a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, confronted Cheatle at the Republican National Convention in search of answers.
Lankford asked the director if she would appear at a public hearing before the Homeland Security Committee following no response from her office. According to Lankford, Cheatle immediately said “this is not the right forum to discuss this.”
“If they knew before the president ever went on the stage there was a threat somewhere in the crowd and they were trying to find that threat, why did they let the president go on stage,” Lankford asked Cheatle in a pursuit referring to former President Trump.
U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Stilwell) also called for Cheatle’s resignation, writing on X that “someone is losing their job.”
“How does a professional organization like the Secret Service allow a failure point of this magnitude to occur? There is no excuse,” Mullin said. “There is more Congress must learn about the agent-in-charge and the precise origins of this security breakdown.”
Cheatle’s resignation comes one day after a grueling hearing before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, during which representatives from both parties grew angry over the security failure.
During the nearly 5 hour hearing, Cheatle called the attempted assassination the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades. However, many found Cheatle’s testimony evasive and filled with “lame excuses.”
“You’re full of s— today!” U.S. Representative Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) said, calling Cheatle “completely dishonest” after failing to answer specific questions about the incident.
Despite this, Cheatle maintained in the hearing that she is “the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time.”
After providing the House Oversight Committee with her subpoenaed testimony, Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) released a statement.
“You failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures,” they said.
The 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, got within 157 yards of the stage Trump was speaking at when he opened fire with an AR-style rifle. The gunman was even photographed 62 minutes before firing, with snipers spotting Crooks 10 minutes prior to Trump taking stage.
Though Trump survived the attempted assassination, a former fire official, Corey Comperatore, died in the shooting. Two others were injured and hospitalized, with their conditions later improving.
According to Cheatle, the Secret Service hopes to have an internal investigation of the attempted assassination completed within 60 days. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has appointed an independent panel to review the incident, with the department’s inspector general opening three investigations.
Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News go to GaylordNews.net.
