US Secret Service admits mistake in attack on Trump – DW – 07/23/2024

The director of the United States Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, acknowledged this Monday (07/22/2024) that the agency failed in its mission to prevent the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, but rejected demands for her resignation from office.

“We failed,” Cheatle told the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. “As director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security breaches,” he added.

Cheatley said the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, who suffered a minor injury to his right ear, was “the most significant Secret Service operational failure in decades.”

“Clearly an error has been made and we will do everything possible to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

The attacker, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, shot Trump with an AR-style rifle minutes after the presidential candidate began his speech during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The crook was killed by a Secret Service sniper 26 seconds after firing eight bullets.

The investigation revealed that Crooks, who lived 50 miles from Butler, acted alone and was unable to identify any strong ideological or political motivation.

Firefighter Corey Comperator, 50, was shot and killed, and two Trump supporters were seriously injured.

Republican Chairman James Comer said at the start of the hearing, “This tragedy was preventable” and “in my view, Director Cheatle should resign.”

Comer said, “The Secret Service has a zero-fail mission, but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally,” for which the service “has now become the face of incompetence.” Republican and Democratic members of Congress on the committee also urged Cheatle to resign.

Republican Michael Turner said that “not only must she resign, but if she refuses to do so, President Biden must fire her because her life, the life of Donald Trump, and the lives of those you protect are all at risk.”

“I am the best person to lead the Secret Service”

Jamie Raskin, a Democratic representative on the committee, agreed. “I don’t want to make the director’s terrible, terrible, very bad day any worse, but I join the (committee’s) chairman in calling for his resignation,” Raskin said.

“I think the director has lost the confidence of Congress, and that’s a very urgent and critical point at this time in the country’s history,” he said.

Cheatle declines those requests. He says, “I think I’m the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time.”

The agency’s director refused to answer many of the congressmen’s specific questions about the attack, arguing that they are still the subject of several ongoing investigations.

“I can talk to you in general terms,” ​​Cheatley teased the congressmen on the committee.

Prior to the shooting, the Secret Service had been alerted “two to five times” about a “suspicious individual” at the rally, but he was not immediately classified as a “threat”.

“Teams were sent to identify and question the man,” he said, “but they were unable to trace him before the shooting.”

Trump’s former doctor said over the weekend that a two-centimeter wound to the former president’s right ear caused by the gunshot has begun to heal.

Ronny Jackson, a former White House doctor and now a far-right congressman from Texas, provided the first detailed account of the 78-year-old Trump’s injury.

The bullet struck him “within millimeters of its impact, entering his head and lodging in the upper part of his right ear,” Jackson wrote, adding that he visited Trump in New Jersey the night of the rally and has been receiving treatment since.

Cheatle served as a Secret Service agent for 27 years before stepping down in 2021 to take over as PepsiCo’s head of security in North America. In 2022 he was appointed as the agency’s director by Joe Biden.

MG (AFP, CNN)