Secret Service chief admits attack against Trump was agency’s “most significant failure” in decades | USA Elections

The head of the US Secret Service, Kimberly A. Cheatle, resigned this Monday to public ridicule when she appeared before the House of Representatives to answer congressmen’s questions about the operation deployed by the body she directed last Saturday, July 13, during Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The former president was slightly injured, and a person present at the electoral event, Corey Comperator, died and two others were in critical condition. “It was the most significant failure of the agency in decades,” Cheatle admitted.

“The Secret Service’s sole mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. And on July 13, we failed,” he said before taking “full responsibility” for what happened that day. He also said he was “proud beyond words” of the way his men behaved after the shooting. Cheatle holds a political position and leads a force made up of 8,000 agents.

Cheatle heard numerous calls from both sides for her to resign from her position. One of those who treated her most harshly was California Congressman Ro Khanna, who asked her if she believed her Secret Service decision could be compared to the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in Washington. She said yes without hesitation. To which Khanna replied: “Do you know what the person who was in office at the time did? I’ll tell you: He resigned.”

Lawmakers from both parties focused their questions on trying to understand how a 20-year-old named Thomas Crooks could climb onto the roof of an industrial building and get so close to where the Republican candidate was speaking to thousands of his followers. He was outside the protected perimeter and could easily take aim with his AR-15 style rifle from a distance of about 130 meters.

Under questioning from Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, Cheatle said he believed “a sufficient number of officers were deployed,” although he declined to give an exact number. The first half hour of his appearance was a tug-of-war between the congressman and the head of the Secret Service, who refused to go into detail on the most specific issues, hiding behind the fact that the investigation “remains open.” This is what he did, for example, when Republican Michael Cloud, a congressman from Texas, asked him for information about the explosives that, as it became known in the following days, Crooks was carrying in the white car in which he traveled 80 kilometers from his home, to Bethel Park (Pennsylvania) where the rally was held.

In his appearance, Cheatle tied up some of the many loose ends in the story of Crooks, whose motivations remain unclear: His political sympathies are not, at this point, ― he recently registered as a Republican, though he also made a testimonial donation to Democrats in 2020 ― and there’s not much we can conclude from studying his digital footprint. It contained photos of Donald Trump as well as Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and even FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, a trusted appointee of the president. There were also photos of former President Trump confidant Rudy Giuliani and the majority and minority leaders in the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (Republican) and Hakeem Jeffries (Democrat). There’s a query about “major depressive disorders” in your search history, as well as the dates and locations of Biden and Trump rallies.

This Monday it was revealed that after he was killed by a Secret Service sniper, his body was only identified by tracing the origin of the gun he was carrying and which his father had bought 11 years ago. The gangsters had no identification on him.

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