The House Oversight Committee held a hearing on Monday with United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to discuss the recent attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) provided opening statements, during which he called for Cheatle to resign over the security failures. Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) also insisted that she step down from her position.
‘The most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades.’
“Americans demand answers, but they have not been getting them from the Secret Service,” Comer stated. “Americans demand accountability, but no one is yet to be fired for this historic failure.”
“It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign,” Comer continued.
During his opening statements, Raskin affirmed that he and Comer “are united in condemning all political violence.” He accused the Secret Service of “stunning security failures.”
Raskin noted that the event that unfolded in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a “double failure,” also pointing blame at Congress for not enacting more restrictive laws to crack down on “criminal gun violence.”
“We must therefore also ask hard questions about whether our laws are making it too easy for potential assassins to obtain firearms generally and AR-15s specifically,” Raskin stated. “Mr. Comperatore, former President Trump and the other rally attendees wounded and Butler, are now members of a club no one wants to belong to — the thousands of people who have fallen victim to mass shootings.”
Cheatle admitted during her opening remarks that the assassination attempt was “the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades.”
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed,” Cheatle added, noting that she accepts “full responsibility.”
“We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and Earth to ensure an incident like July 13th does not happen again,” Cheatle’s opening statement continued. “I am proud beyond words of the actions taken by the former president’s detail, the counter-sniper team that neutralized the gunman, and the tactical team who was prepared to act.”
When asked why the Secret Service did not place an agent on top of the roof where the gunman was located, Cheatle did not provide a direct answer.
“I’m sure as you can imagine that we are just nine days out from this incident, and there is still an ongoing investigation, and so I want to make sure that any information that we are providing to you is factual,” she responded. “We are still looking into the advance process and the decisions that were made.”
According to Cheatle, the Secret Service provided all of the detail requested by Trump for the July 13 rally. CNN reported that the Secret Service has denied the Trump campaign’s specific security requests during previous events.
“For the event in Butler, there were no requests that were denied,” she replied.
Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wondered whether the Trump campaign might have decided not to ask for additional resources because previous requests had been denied.
“Maybe they got tired of asking,” Jordan speculated. “Maybe you turned they down so darn much they said, ‘Not worth asking.’ How many times did you turn them down ahead of that?”
Cheatle did not provide a direct response but claimed that a request denial does not equate to a vulnerability in the Secret Service’s protection.
She testified that the Federal Bureau of Investigation informed the Secret Service that the gunman had deployed a drone in the area earlier that day.
Raskin pressed Cheatle about why Trump was allowed to take the stage after an individual, later identified as the gunman, was designated as “suspicious” by law enforcement.
“If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out onto stage,” Cheatle replied, explaining that the agency distinguishes between an individual labeled “suspicious” versus “threatening.”
The agency was alerted “somewhere between two and five times” about a suspicious individual on the day of the rally, she testified. Only “seconds before the gunfire” was the gunman identified as a threat, she added. Cheatle admitted that she had not visited the site of the shooting.
Throughout the committee’s questioning, Cheatle maintained that despite the agency’s recent failure, she still thinks she is “the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time.”
According to Cheatle, the agency’s initial internal investigation will be completed within 60 days. No employees have been disciplined at this time.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) torched Cheatle for failing to provide answers, calling it “simply not acceptable” that a report would take 60 days.
Representative Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) also expressed frustration with Cheatle’s lack of answers.
“You’re not making this easy for us,” Brown remarked.
Representative Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) called for Cheatle’s resignation, stating that she should have come to the hearing prepared to answer lawmakers’ questions.
After the hearing, Comer and Raskin sent a joint letter calling for Cheatle’s resignation.
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