Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle admitted on Monday that her agency did not fulfil its duty to safeguard former President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers from both major political parties criticized her during a heated congressional hearing, calling for her resignation due to security lapses that enabled a gunman to shoot at a campaign rally.
Cheatle said, “The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed… I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency. We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations… I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again.”
She frustrated lawmakers during her initial congressional hearing on the July 13 assassination attempt by dodging questions and referring to ongoing investigations.
The Director labelled the incident as the Secret Service’s biggest operational blunder in years.
Cheatle contended that the thorough advancement process includes coordinated planning among our Secret Service, the protectee’s team, local law enforcement partners, and the security level for the ex-president has been escalating long before the campaign and continues to rise as threats change.
She admitted that Thomas Matthew Crooks had been spotted by the local police before the shooting with a rangefinder, a small device similar to binoculars that hunters use to gauge distance from a target.
Prior to the shooting, authorities observed Crooks walking back and forth near the rally, looking through a rangefinder at the rooftops behind the stage where the president eventually appeared, as reported by The Associated Press.
Police officers outside the security perimeter shared a photo of Crooks.
Onlookers later observed him scaling the exterior of a low manufacturing facility located just 135 meters (157 yards) away from the stage.
Subsequently, he positioned his rifle and positioned himself on the rooftop, carrying a detonator in his pocket to trigger makeshift explosive devices hidden in his nearby parked car.
Cheatle mentioned that the Secret Service would have stopped the rally if agents had been informed there was an “actual threat,” but she emphasized that there’s a distinction between someone flagged as suspicious and someone flagged as a genuine threat.
Cheatle mentioned that she is patiently awaiting the investigation to unfold when questioned about the absence of agents on the roof where the shooter was positioned or the use of drones by the Secret Service for surveillance, causing groans and outbursts from committee members.
“Director Cheatle, because Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you look incompetent,” said Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio. “If he were killed you would look culpable.”
Cheatle, with almost thirty years of experience at the agency, insisted that she was the most suitable candidate to head the Secret Service despite the setbacks.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., pointed out that the former Secret Service director in charge during the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan eventually resigned.
Trump sustained an injury to his ear, one person attending the rally was fatally shot, and two others were wounded when an individual climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and began shooting with an AR-style rifle shortly after Trump began his speech at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Even though the Secret Service had been informed multiple times about a suspicious individual before the shooting, Cheatle displayed no intention of resigning.
The assault on Trump marked the most serious effort to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Reagan was shot in 1981.
It was the most recent in a series of security breaches by the agency, which has been under public scrutiny and investigation for years.