Embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle admitted on Monday that the near-assassination of former President Donald Trump was the “most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades” — but still refused to resign as she faced tough questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed,” Cheatle told members of the House Oversight Committee in a hearing. “As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse.”
Cheatle also offered her “sincerest condolences to the family of Corey Comperatore,” the father and volunteer fire chief who was killed in the shooting, and wished a “speedy recovery” to the two others who were wounded, David Dutch and James Copenhaver.
She claimed that “the level of security provided for the former president increased well before the campaign and has been steadily increasing as threats evolve” — contradicting whistleblower testimony about the “little resources” available to the agency following the NATO summit in Washington, DC.
Whistleblowers informed the House Judiciary Committee last week that Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Tim Burke acknowledged the depleted resources at a July 8 meeting with the FBI and other law enforcement partners — five days after preparations began to cover the Butler Farm Show rally.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to evade Secret Service and local Butler police officers before taking aim and firing multiple shots at Trump from the roof of the AGR International Inc. building — just 130 yards from the main stage at the campaign event.
A local police counter-sniper team from Butler had been stationed inside the manufacturing facility building — but never caught Crooks setting up his sniper’s perch above — with one officer confronting but failing to stop the gunman before he opened fire.
“At the outset, let me state unequivocally: Nothing I have said previously should be interpreted to place blame for this failure on our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners who supported the Secret Service in Butler, Pennsylvania,” Cheatle also said. “We could not do our job without them.”
She claimed during questioning that the building from which Crooks opened fire was “outside the perimeter” of Secret Service protection — and that the reason for her agency not having counter-snipers on the building was because the agency prefers to have “sterile” rather than “sloped” roofs.
“There was a plan in place to provide overwatch,” she also said without clarifying how “three concentric rings of protection” were enforced during the rally.
Cheatle also suggested, however, that the Secret Service needed “to be adequately resourced” — despite acknowledging it had a $3.1 billion budget for all protectees.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) called for Cheatle’s resignation in his opening remarks — noting that she had defied calls from lawmakers to do so.
“The July 13th assassination attempt is one of the darkest days in American political history,” Comer said. “It represents the ugliest parts of what American politics has become: hatred of each other and a dangerous turn to extremism.”
The FBI and DHS’ Office of the Inspector General are investigating the Trump shooting, and Cheatle pledged to “fully” cooperate with both probes.