Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle, who couldn’t, or just wouldn’t, answer questions from a House committee on the agency’s failures in the July 13 attempt on the life of ex-president Donald Trump, announced her resignation on Tuesday.
“In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that, I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director,” Cheatle wrote in an email to Secret Service employees on Tuesday.
James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, and Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking member as the top Democrat on the panel, had both called on Cheatle to resign during a contentious public hearing on Monday.
Cheatle had served in the Secret Service for 27 years before being appointed its director by President Biden in 2022.
In her email, she took “full responsibility for the security lapse” that led to the attempt on Trump’s life at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
The shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, was able to get a clear shot from the rooftop of a warehouse approximately 500 feet from the stage that was inexplicably left outside the security perimeter established by the Secret Service for the outdoor event.
A New York Times analysis published online on Tuesday details the scope of the operational failure, demonstrating how Crooks was able to exploit a blindspot in between the three sniper teams deployed for the event.
Cheatle’s resignation leaves the Secret Service without a top leader at a critical time – with the Democratic National Convention four weeks away, and the election season already well underway, with Secret Service teams assigned to the two major-party candidates, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, and third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Whoever steps in, presumably as an interim director, will be responsible for oversight and coordination of security planning for the duration of the presidential campaign, and also the internal assessment of the operational failures from the July 13 incident, the findings of which would seem to be important to protecting candidates for the next three-plus months.
Update: Tuesday, 11:47 p.m. First District Republican Congressman Rob Wittman released the following statement on the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle:
“The resignation of Director Cheatle is 10 days overdue. The Secret Service had a responsibility to protect Former President Trump, and the assassination attempt we saw in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 was a complete security failure.
“The gunman should never have been able to get that close to President Trump. What happened was inexcusable.
“While her resignation is one step toward accountability, House Republicans are committed to investigating this heinous act through a task force with subpoena authority to ensure this never happens again.”
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Chris Graham
