Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle faces fierce grilling at first hearing on Trump shooting

Editor’s note: Kimberly Cheatle announced her resignation as director of the Secret Service on July 23, one day after her testimony before Congress.

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Washington — Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle faced withering criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike in her first testimony about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, with lawmakers furious over her unwillingness to answer questions about the security failures at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Cheatle told members of the House Oversight Committee that the attack was the “most significant operational failure” for the Secret Service in decades, and repeatedly said she takes full responsibility for the security lapses. 

But her promise for accountability did little to quiet the calls for her to resign. Several Democrats on the committee, including ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, joined Republicans in calling for her to step down.

“This relationship is irretrievable at this point and I think that the director has lost the confidence of Congress at a very urgent and tender moment in the history of the country, and we need to quickly move beyond this,” Raskin said.

After the proceedings ended, Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, filed a privileged resolution to impeach Cheatle. House Republican leaders have two legislative days to to set a floor vote on the measure.

Over the course of the heated four-hour hearing, Cheatle fielded questions about why Trump was allowed to take the stage at the rally when the shooter, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, had been deemed suspicious by law enforcement, and defended the number of agents assigned to protect the former president at the campaign event. 

She repeatedly cited the FBI’s ongoing criminal investigation into the assassination attempt when declining to discuss the specifics of the gunman’s actions leading up to the attack.

Cheatle also told lawmakers that she believes she is the “best person to lead the Secret Service at this time,” but acknowledged that the agency failed in its mission to protect the nation’s leaders.

“We must learn what happened and I will move heaven and earth to ensure an incident like July 13th does not happen again,” she said.

Here’s how the hearing unfolded: