WASHINGTON — Congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle berated U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Monday over the agency’s failures to prevent the attempted assassination against former President Donald J. Trump, urging her to resign amid dissatisfaction with her testimony.
Nine days since a 20-year-old shooter killed one rallygoer and injured two others with an AR-15 style rifle at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a slew of bipartisan investigations and actions have sprung up in an attempt to get to the bottom of the shooting that nearly killed the 2024 GOP presidential nominee. The gunman was killed at the scene.
“The Secret Service has a zero-fail mission, but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally,” Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said in an opening statement to the panel’s lengthy hearing on the attempted assassination.
“The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a significant budget, but it has now become the face of incompetence,” Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said.
Cheatle, who testified after Comer subpoenaed her, said the assassination attempt is “the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades” and acknowledged that she has taken, and will continue to take, accountability.
“I am responsible for leading the agency, and I am responsible for finding the answers to how this event occurred and making sure that it doesn’t happen again,” she added.
Both parties critical in questioning
Republicans and Democrats expressed extreme dissatisfaction over Cheatle’s answers, with Comer and ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland calling on Cheatle to resign in a joint letter following the hearing.
The two said Cheatle “failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures.”
Lawmakers grilled Cheatle on how the gunman was able to execute the attack and access the roof where he conducted the shooting, how Trump was allowed to enter the stage with a “suspicious person” being identified and why she has not yet resigned from her post.
“Director Cheatle, because Donald Trump is alive — and thank God he is — you look incompetent. If Donald Trump had been killed, you would have looked culpable,” said GOP Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who chairs the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.
Cheatle’s testimony
During the hearing, Cheatle noted that she was answering questions she’s able to answer “based on the fact that there are multiple ongoing investigations.”
However, throughout the hearing, Cheatle did disclose that the Secret Service was alerted “somewhere between two and five times” about a “suspicious individual” prior to the shooting.
“You’re full of s— today. You’re just being completely dishonest,” GOP South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace said while asking Cheatle a series of “yes” or “no” questions, including whether this was a “colossal failure.”
Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat, said Cheatle’s answers were “completely unsatisfactory.”
“How could this happen? … We need answers not just for the family members of the gentleman who was killed and those who were injured, but we need answers for our democracy, because as others have stated here today, we are in a highly politically charged environment right now,” she said.
Rep. Byron Donalds was among the myriad lawmakers calling on Cheatle to step down, saying: “You do need to be fired immediately, and it is because this is gross incompetence.”
“This is a joke, and Director, you’re in charge, and that’s why you need to go,” Donalds, a Florida Republican, said.
GOP Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan also voiced her frustration over Cheatle’s answers.
“If you’re gonna lead, you need to lead,” McClain said. “If you wanna be in charge, then answer the question, or step aside and have someone with the courage and the guts to answer to the American people the questions that they deserve answers to.”
Cheatle also took heat after saying that they were targeting an internal investigation to be complete within 60 days — a timeline that did not sit well with the committee.
Cheatle pointed out a number of Office of Inspector General investigations and the FBI’s ongoing criminal investigation remain in progress while the agency conducted its own internal investigation.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, noted that November’s elections are just more than 100 days away.
“So the notion of a report coming out in 60 days when the threat environment is so high in the United States — irrespective of party — is not acceptable,” she said.
Calls for gun control
Some Democrats, including Raskin, used the hearing to highlight gun violence and pushed for a ban on AR-15s.
He noted another mass shooting the same day as the attempt on Trump’s life killed four and injured at least 10 others at a Birmingham, Alabama, nightclub.
“This means, amazingly, that the Butler attack was not even the deadliest mass shooting to happen in America on that day,” he said. “We have to find the courage and resolve to pass a ban on the AR-15 and other assault weapons.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan pointed out that this year, the committee had not held a hearing on the “over 260 mass shootings that we’ve had, killing hundreds of people, injuring hundreds, changing their lives forever.”
More investigations
On Monday, members of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, led by Chairman Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee, visited the site of the rally. The committee also plans to hold a hearing on the assassination attempt in Washington Tuesday.
Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, whose district includes Butler, was also in attendance.
A proposal, submitted by Kelly, to establish a task force on the attempted assassination is scheduled for a vote on the House floor this week.
It would “investigate and fully examine all actions by any agency, Department, officer, or employee of the federal government, as well as State and local law enforcement or any other State or local government or private entities or individuals” related to the attempted assassination.
The task force would also issue a final report on its findings no later than Dec. 13.
Separately, President Joe Biden asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to launch an “independent security review” of the attempted assassination, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday named a bipartisan panel to conduct a “45-day independent review” regarding the actions of the agency and state and local authorities before, during and in the aftermath of the July 13 rally.
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