Posted on 07/23/24
| News Source: CNN
US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has tendered her resignation amid scrutiny of security lapses related to the recent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, sources tell CNN.
The move comes as lawmakers and an internal government watchdog move forward with investigations into the agency’s handling of Trump’s protection and how a gunman came close to the killing the 2024 Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania this month.
There have been bipartisan calls in Congress for her resignation and a push by Republican lawmakers to impeach her. Lawmakers were particularly incensed after her appearance for public testimony in front of the House Oversight Commitee Monday, where she was unwilling to answer many of the committee’s questions.
In the initial wake of the shooting, Cheatle was emphatic that she would not step down. Cheatle was appointed by President Joe Biden to lead the Secret Service in 2022.
In an interview with CNN last week, Cheatle said that the agency was “solely responsible” for the design and implementation of security at the Pennsylvania rally site, where the now-deceased gunman fired shots at Trump from an unsecured rooftop just a few hundred feet from the rally stage.
The bullets only narrowly missed Trump’s head, and the incident left one rallygoer dead and others injured.
As more has become known about the circumstances around the attempted attack, the Secret Service has been questioned about how it carried its protection of Trump that day, including the failure to control access to the rooftop and how the agency handled information, passed along by local law enforcement before the shooting, that identified the would-be assassin as a person acting suspiciously around the rally grounds.