Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigns: Sources - ABC News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
She was criticized for failing to prevent the assassination attempt on Trump.
ByLuke Barr, Aaron Katersky, and Julia ReinsteinJuly 23, 2024, 10:52 AM
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who came under scrutiny for the agency's failure to prevent the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, has resigned, according to two sources familiar with the decision.
Cheatle had faced calls to step down since the shooting at a Trump rally on July 13, which left one attendee dead and two others critically injured.
She announced her resignation in an email to Secret Service employees Tuesday morning.
"The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders and financial infrastructure. On July 13th, we fell short on that mission," she wrote. "The scrutiny over the last week has been intense and will continue to remain as our operational tempo increases. As your Director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse."
In an interview with ABC News after the attack, Cheatle called the incident "unacceptable" and said it was her responsibility to ensure nothing like it will happen again.
"The buck stops with me," she said. "I am the director of the Secret Service, and I need to make sure that we are performing a review and that we are giving resources to our personnel as necessary."
Cheatle said during the interview she would not resign from her role -- a claim she repeated during House testimony on Monday.
During the contentious hearing, Cheatle called the assassination attempt on Trump the "most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades."
"The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders. On July 13, we failed," Cheatle said in her testimony before the House committee. "As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse. We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. We must learn what happened."
United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle speaks during a press conference at the Secret Service's Chicago Field Office on June 4 2024 in Chicago, ahead of the 2024 Democratic and Republican National Conventions.Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images
Cheatle told the committee that she would move "heaven and earth" to ensure that what occurred will never happen again.
"Our mission is not political. It is literally a matter of life and death, as the tragic events on July 13 remind us of that," she said. "I have full confidence in the men and women of the Secret Service. They are worthy of our support in executing our protective mission."
Cheatle had faced calls to resign from both Republicans and Democrats after the shooting. John Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Cheatle in his opening statement at the hearing that he was among those who believe she should resign.
By the end of the hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member of the committee, joined in the calls for Cheatle to resign, saying that the director "has lost the confidence of Congress at a very urgent and tender moment in the history of the country and we need to quickly move beyond this." Following the hearing, Raskin joined Comer in sending Cheatle a letter requesting her resignation.
Critics questioned how the Secret Service could have failed to safeguard the rally area from such an attack, particularly following reports the shooter had been spotted before he opened fire and identified as potentially suspicious.
Cheatle previously told ABC News "a very short period of time" passed between then and the shooting.
"I don't have all the details yet, but it was a very short period of time," she said. "Seeking that person out, finding them, identifying them, and eventually neutralizing them took place in a very short period of time, and it makes it very difficult."
Cheatle also said that local authorities were tasked with securing the building where the alleged shooter fired the shots before being taken out by a Secret Service sniper, and confirmed that local police were present inside the building while the shooter was on the roof.
"In this particular instance, we did share support for that particular site and that the Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter," Cheatle said. "And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter. There was local police in that building -- there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building."
United Sates Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a hearing, July 22, 2024, in Washington.Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
Some of the criticism of Cheatle has focused on her being a woman, with prominent conservatives, like Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., calling her a "DEI hire" and female Secret Service agents in general as having "physical limitations" that should prevent them from serving.
Cheatle testified before the GOP-led House Oversight Committee on Monday. In a statement announcing the hearing, chairman Comer said, "Americans demand answers" from Cheatle.
"The United States Secret Service has a no-fail mission, yet it failed on Saturday when a madman attempted to assassinate President Trump, killed an innocent victim, and harmed others," Comer said. "We are grateful to the brave Secret Service agents who acted quickly to protect President Trump after shots were fired and the American patriots who sought to help victims, but questions remain about how a rooftop within proximity to President Trump was left unsecure."
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Now that's out of the way, I heard Mace wants to bring up articles of impeachment for the lunch lady because she serves too much cheese with her noon wine.
the [✘] emperor's reaction to the news was that he was "proud to take a bullet for democracy"...
Hmmm... Trump said he was "proud to take a bullet for democracy"... weird. I wonder if anyone has said to him...
hopefully she took all the trump implants out of the agency before she packed her desk...
She should have been fired; instead of finally being forced to resign.
She fucked up things on so many different levels it wasn't even funny with the Trump security detail.
It doesn't make a damn bit of difference if it were a man or woman making this colossal of a fuck up. They should have been fired just the same.
The buck stops with her and thats the way it works.
I doubt she was hands on at Butler though. The one who should take more of the blame is the agent in charge on the scene that day.
And that may still come to pass john , have to wait and see .
We could see it in the form of a firing , or a reassignment somewhere other than protective details , like counterfeit division in death valley or Nome .
Whatever. Seems like a waste. Emotional scapegoating. Somehow it’s not urgent that at least 200 members of Congress don’t resign for all the shit goes wrong on their watch.
Someone call the burn ward!
And she provided NONE.
actually she did , but the people saw where she was pulling the answers from .
The fault seems to be in the local supervision for that event. Crooks was plainly visible for some time before the shooting - he was shot immediately after. At the minimum, the speech should have stopped, to seclude Trump, while some 'bird watcher' was investigated. The government has an overabundance of 'kiss-up, kick-down' management.
She had no choice. That was a cluster fuck of almost unbelievable proportions.
Thank God and Greyhound!
Not exactly a glowing endorsement on one's resume...I think that was given she would no longer hold that position..