New Delhi: Kimberly Cheatle, director of the US Secret Service who has been under fire over the agency’s failure to prevent an assassination attempt earlier this month on former president Donald Trump, resigned from her post Tuesday.
“I take full responsibility for the security lapse… in the light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director,” Cheatle stated in an email to agency staff, the Associated Press has reported.
Trump, the Republican candidate for this year’s presidential polls in the US, was wounded on his ear after a 20-year-old gunman was able to fire at him from a rooftop overlooking his outdoor rally in Pennsylvania on 13 July.
The resignation of Cheatle, who was appointed in August 2022, came a day after she testified before the House Oversight Committee, where she made it clear that she had no intention of resigning. The hearing saw lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties calling for her resignation – a rare model of bipartisanship in the House of Representatives.
Cheatle had frustrated lawmakers by refusing to answer most questions regarding the assassination attempt on Trump.
Appearing before the committee, she refused to share any information on the number of Secret Service agents protecting Trump, or about who had made the decision to leave the rooftop where the shot was fired from outside of the rally security perimeter.
Even Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sought Cheatle’s resignation. It is rare for a party to seek the resignation of their own appointee.
James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and a Republican lawmaker from Kentucky said during the hearing that while the committee is “not known” for bipartisanship, Cheatle’s hearing has seen unanimous disappointment from its members.
“At any point Saturday, did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof?” asked Comer as he kicked off Cheatle’s hearing before the committee.
“I am sure you can imagine that we are just nine days out from this incident and there is still an ongoing investigation and so I want to make sure that any information that I am providing is factual” was Cheatle’s response.
Such responses continued throughout the hearing, where the committee was not given answers to members’ questions.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican lawmaker from the state of Georgia, sought a detailed timeline of events leading up to the assassination attempt.
Cheatle in her answer said she did not have one and had “only a timeline of events without specifics”. Not getting into the “specifics” was her common answer throughout the hearing.
When a Democratic lawmaker on the committee asked Cheatle if she would fire any Secret Service agent found to have made mistakes that led to the incident, she said she did not have an answer, The New York Times reported.
“Well, look, I believe director Cheatle, that you should resign,” said Ro Khanna, a Democratic lawmaker from California.
“I will be joining the chairman in calling for the resignation of the director… the director has lost confidence of the Congress at a very tender and urgent moment in the history of the country,” said Jamie Raskin, a ranking member of the committee from the Democratic party.
Also Read: ‘May add to his present edge’ — how assassination attempt on Trump could affect US presidential race
Biden to announce new director soon
US President Joe Biden has announced he plans to appoint a new Secret Service director soon. However, the resignation of Cheatle is expected to do little towards reducing the controversies surrounding the agency.
The Secret Service has been in charge of providing full-time security to US presidents after William McKinley, then US president, was assassinated in 1901.
The service was later tasked to protect former presidents and their spouses as well as candidates of major political parties in the run up to elections.
Cheatle was appointed by Biden, as the director of the Secret Service serves at the pleasure of the US president and does not require a senate confirmation. Before being appointed as director of the US Secret Service, she worked at PepsiCo between 2019 and 2022. Prior to that, she had been part of the Secret Service for over two decades.
“Jill and I are grateful to Director Cheatle for her decades of public service. We especially thank her for answering the call to lead the Secret Service during my Administration and are grateful for her service to our family,” Biden stated on X Tuesday.
After Cheatle stepped down, Ronald L. Rowe Jr was appointed as acting director of the Secret Service by Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, on Tuesday afternoon.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)