The director of the Secret Service is stepping down from her job, according to an email she sent to staff, after the assassination attempt against former US president Donald Trump.
The attempt unleashed an intensifying outcry about how the agency tasked with protecting current and former presidents could fail in its core mission.
Kimberly Cheatle, Secret Service director since August 2022, had been facing growing calls to resign and several investigations into how the gunman was able to get so close to the Republican presidential nominee at an outdoor campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” she said in the email to staff 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.”
Ms Cheatle’s resignation comes a day after she appeared before a congressional committee and was berated by hours by both Democrats and Republicans for the security failures.
She called the attempt on Mr Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades and said she takes full responsibility for the security lapses, but angered lawmakers by failing to answer specific questions about the investigation.
At the news of Ms Cheatle’s resignation, Mr Trump posted on his social media network: “The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy. IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!”
President Joe Biden said in a statement that “we all know what happened that day can never happen again”, and said he would appoint a new director soon, but he did not discuss a timeline.
At the hearing on Monday, Ms Cheatle remained defiant that she was the “right person” to lead the Secret Service, even as she said she took full responsibility for the security lapses.
When Republican representative Nancy Mace suggested Ms Cheatle begin drafting her resignation letter from the hearing room, Ms Cheatle responded: “No, thank you.”
The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to get within 135 metres of the stage where the former president was speaking when he opened fire.
The shooting took place despite a threat on Mr Trump’s life from Iran leading to additional security for the former president in the days before the July 13 rally.
Ms Cheatle acknowledged on Monday that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting at the rally.
She also said that the roof from which Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally.
But she failed to answer many questions about what happened, including why there were no agents stationed on the roof.
A bloodied Mr Trump was quickly escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents, and agency snipers killed the gunman.
Mr Trump said the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting. One person at the rally was killed and two others were critically wounded.
“The assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump on July 13 is the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades,” Ms Cheatle told members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
“As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse.”
Details continue to unfold about signs of trouble that day and what role both the Secret Service and local authorities played in security.
The agency routinely relies on local law enforcement to secure the perimeter of events where people it is protecting appear.
Former top Secret Service agents said the gunman should never have been allowed to gain access to the roof.
Two days after the shooting, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he supported Ms Cheatle “100%”.
But there were calls for accountability across the political spectrum, with congressional committees immediately moving to investigate, issuing a subpoena to testify and the top Republican leaders from both the House and the Senate saying she should step down.
Mr Biden ordered an independent review into security at the rally and the Secret Service’s inspector general opened an investigation.
The agency is also reviewing its counter sniper team’s “preparedness and operations”.
In an interview with ABC News two days after the shooting, Ms Cheatle said she was not resigning.
She called the shooting “unacceptable” and something that no Secret Service agent wants to happen.
She said her agency is responsible for the former president’s protection: “The buck stops with me. I am the director of the Secret Service.”
Ms Cheatle was in the Secret Service for 27 years. She left in 2021 for a job as a security executive at PepsiCo before Mr Biden asked her to return in 2022 to head the agency with a workforce of 7,800 special agents, uniformed officers and other staff.
She took over amid controversy over missing text messages from around the time thousands of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
During her time at the agency Ms Cheatle was the first woman to be named assistant director of protective operations, the division that provides protection to the president and other dignitaries.
She is the second woman to lead the agency overall.
When he announced her appointment, Mr Biden said Cheatle had been a member of his detail when he was vice president and he and his wife “came to trust her judgment and counsel”.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
