Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle Testifies Before Congress About Trump Assassination Attempt

The head of the US Secret Service on Monday described the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, as her agency’s “biggest operational failure” in decades and said she took “full responsibility” for it.

But agency director Kimberly Cheatle avoided answering key questions about the day’s events and defied bipartisan calls for her resignation during a contentious hearing before the House Oversight Committee.

“The solemn mission of the Secret Service is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed,” Cheatle told the committee in her opening remarks, her first public appearance since 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks managed to fire multiple rounds from the roof of a building less than 150 feet from the stage where Trump was speaking.

The attack left Trump with minor ear injuries, one spectator dead, and two others in critical condition. In the days that followed, the Secret Service and local law enforcement engaged in a messy, public exchange of accusations about who was to blame for the security lapses that allowed Crooks to carry out the attack.

Here’s what we learned at Monday’s hearing:

Cheatle gave the Secret Service an “A” grade for its performance at the July 13 rally

Cheatle told lawmakers she was “extremely proud” of the agents who protected Trump at the rally, later adding that they earned an “A” grade for their work that day.

But that assessment drew repeated skepticism from committee members, including Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), who said he was surprised they allowed a wounded Trump to remain on stage at the rally for more than a minute “with a high-capacity shooter … and [who] “He could have gotten out, we don’t know how many more rounds.”

Congressman Mike Turner (Republican of Ohio) added his two cents.

“Because Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you look incompetent,” he told Cheatle. “If Donald Trump were killed, you would look guilty.”

Cheatle: No Secret Service assets were denied to Trump campaign at July 13 rally

The Secret Service admitted over the weekend that rejected multiple Trump campaign requests over the past two years to bolster the protection of the former president.

But Cheatle maintained Monday that there were “no motions that were denied” regarding Butler’s rally.

That response has been the subject of grave questioning from Republicans and Democrats alike. At one point, Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) suggested that perhaps the Trump campaign hadn’t bothered to keep pushing for more security resources because of those earlier denials.

“Maybe they got tired of asking,” he said.

Before the shooting, the Secret Service received “two to five” reports of a suspicious person.

Cheatle told the commission that the agency received multiple reports of a suspicious person in the crowd before Crooks opened fire. Local law enforcement officers first spotted him carrying a rangefinder outside the Butler Fair Grounds.

“I don’t have an exact number to share with you today,” she said. “But from what I’ve gathered, there were between two and five instances where there was some form of communication about a suspicious person.”

This left several committee members wondering why the Secret Service allowed Trump onstage anyway.

Cheatle maintained that rangefinders — used by snipers to measure the distance to distant objects — are not banned from agency-protected events and that someone wearing one would not necessarily trigger Secret Service intervention. She also explained that the Secret Service makes a distinction between people designated as “suspicious” and those perceived as potential threats.

“During security events, there are many times when suspicious individuals are identified and these individuals need to be investigated,” she said.

Cheatle continued: “If the officers had been given information about the threat, they would never have brought the former president on stage,” she said.

Local law enforcement sent out photos of the Crooks more than a half-hour before the shooting.

Cheatle said local officers identified Crooks hanging around the scene, filed reports and even circulated a photo of him more than a half-hour before the gunmen opened fire.

She confirmed media reports that at least two local officers called in reports of Crooks’ suspicious behavior, took his photo and circulated it to other security personnel. They first saw Crooks crawling on the ground near the gathering, prompting authorities to search for him, Pittsburgh TV news station WPXI reported that.

Moments later, a half-hour before the shooting, a sniper from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit — which had deployed eight members to the security detail that day — spotted Crooks again, watching from the roof of a farm implement storage facility about 150 feet from the rally site.

Cheatle said Monday that the Secret Service identified the building as a potential vulnerability days before the Trump rally. Again, the officer who spotted Crooks called in a report and sent a photo.

She told commissioners she had no knowledge of whether any officers spoke to Crooks during that time period.

Cheatle avoided questions about other key aspects of the investigation.

Much to the chagrin of committee members, Cheatle repeatedly avoided answering key questions about the shooting, citing the ongoing FBI and her agency’s internal investigation.

Questions included how many Secret Service agents were deployed to protect Trump that day, whether any agents were on the roof where Crooks opened fire and who specifically excluded the warehouse from the agency’s security plan for the rally.

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) took issue with her repeated resistance to answering questions.

“You are responsible for investigating your own failure,” he said. “So how can anyone in America trust the results… as transparent and authentic?”

Cheatle said she looks forward to providing a full report to members of Congress once the Secret Service’s internal investigation is completed within 60 days. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and several of her colleagues called that timeline “unacceptable.”

Cheatle resists calls to resign

As Monday’s hearing progressed, bipartisan calls for Cheatle to resign continued to mount. But she defied demands to resign, as she has done since the shooting.

“I think I am the best person to lead the Secret Service at this point,” she told committee members.

At the end of the meeting, the GOP and Democratic leaders on the committees — Reps. James Comer (R., Ky.) and Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) — said they would sign a joint letter demanding her resignation. Cheatle maintains support of President Joe Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

Scott Perry: Secret Service Agents Are ‘Problematic in Protecting’ Officials

Several GOP committee members repeated a theme that has gained traction in right-wing media since the attack on Trump: an attempt to apply the assassination attempt to undermine efforts by the Secret Service to diversify its staff in recent years.

Some GOP members questioned whether the women, including Cheatle herself, were physically capable of protecting the nation’s leaders, a move that drew swift condemnation from their Democratic counterparts. Rep. Tim Burchett (R., Tenn.) called Cheatle a “DEI horror story” on Monday.

But taking up the questioning, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) pressed the director on whether the compact agents were able to adequately protect Trump, who is more than six feet high.

“If someone is seven feet tall and you are five feet tall,” he said, “there will be a delta there, which will be problematic for protecting the person protecting you.”

Cheatle responded, “The agents assigned to our cases are fully competent.”

Difficult questions will probably be repeated

The controversial hearing is just the beginning of a challenging week for law enforcement officials on Capitol Hill.

Members of the House Homeland Security Committee joined Rep. Mike Kelly, a Butler Republican who attended the July 13 rally, by visiting the Butler Fair Grounds on Monday ahead of hearings he has promised to hold in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday where FBI Director Christopher Wray will testify to demand answers about the bureau’s ongoing investigation into the attack.

House members are also expected to vote this week on a resolution establishing an 11-member bipartisan task force to investigate the attack. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who attended Monday’s Oversight Committee hearing, said he hopes the creation of such a task force will lend a hand focus the House’s efforts to investigate.