WASHINGTON – WASHINGTON (AP) – The assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump was the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, Director Kimberly Cheatle told lawmakers Monday, as calls grew for her to resign.
In the first congressional hearing the shooting at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month, Cheatle said he took “full responsibility” for the security failures and promised to “move heaven and earth” to ensure it would not happen again.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed,” Cheatle said.
Lawmakers have expressed anger How could the shooter get so close? to the Republican presidential candidate when he should be carefully guarded. Lawmakers peppered Cheatle with questions about why she should be allowed to keep her job and why Trump was allowed on stage after local authorities identified the man as a suspect.
Asked why there were no agents on the roof where the shooter was located or whether the Secret Service used drones to monitor the area, Cheatle said she was still waiting for the investigation to unfold, drawing groans and outbursts from committee members.
“Director Cheatle, because Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you look incompetent,” said Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio.
Trump was injured in the ear and two other participants were injured afterwards Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and opened fire.
The Secret Service acknowledged that he denied some requests from the Trump campaign to increase security at his events in previous years the assassination attempt. But Cheatle said there were “no goods denied” for Trump’s July 13 rally.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called what happened a “failure,” while several lawmakers called on Cheatle to resign or President Joe Biden to fire her. The Secret Service said Cheatle does not intend to resign. So far, she maintains the support of Biden, a Democrat, and Mayorkas.
Before the shooting, local authorities noticed Crooks walking around the edges of the rally, looking through the lens of a rangefinder toward rooftops behind the stage where the president later stood, officials told the Associated Press. An image of Crooks was released by officers stationed outside the security perimeter.
Witnesses later saw him climbing the side of an industrial building that was 135 meters (157 yards) from the stage. He then assembled his AR-style rifle and lay down on the roof, with a detonator in his pocket to detonate rudimentary explosive devices that were hidden in his car parked nearby.
The attack on Trump was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It was the latest in a series of security lapses by the agency that have drawn investigations and public scrutiny over the years.
Authorities have been searching for clues about what motivated Crooks, but so far they have found no ideological bias that could help explain his actions. Investigators who searched your phone I found photos of Trump, Biden and other senior administration officials, and also discovered that he had looked up the dates of the Democratic National Convention as well as Trump’s appearances. He also looked for information about major depressive disorder.
