Secret Service Director Resigns After Congressional Hearing

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle submitted her resignation today after several members of the grueling bipartisan Congressional hearing on Monday, July 22 called for her to resign following the assassination attempt on former President Trump on Saturday, July 13 at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigns in wake of Trump assassination attempt

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who came under scrutiny for the agency’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, has resigned, according to two sources familiar with the decision.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigns

US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has tendered her resignation amid scrutiny of security lapses related to the recent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, sources tell CNN.

The move comes as lawmakers and an internal government watchdog move forward with investigations into the agency’s handling of Trump’s protection and how a gunman came close to the killing the 2024 Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania this month.

Cheatle said in her resignation letter that she made the “difficult” decision to leave the agency “with a heavy heart” and that she doesn’t want her departure to distract agents from their mission. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that, I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director,” Cheatle wrote. She acknowledged that on July 13, the day of the shooting, the agency “fell short” of its mission to “to protect our nation’s leaders.”

In a statement, President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden are “grateful” for Cheatle’s decades of public service and will appoint a new director “soon.” “As a leader, it takes honor, courage, and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service,” Biden said of Cheatle.

There have been bipartisan calls in Congress for Cheatle’s resignation and a push by Republican lawmakers to impeach her. Lawmakers were particularly incensed after her appearance in front of the House Oversight Committee on Monday, where she was unwilling to answer many of the committee’s questions.

During her House Oversight appearance, Cheatle acknowledged that there were “significant” and “colossal” problems with the security at the rally, but still rebuffed demands for her resignation. “I think I am the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time,” Cheatle said Monday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that the resignation is “overdue. “Now we have to pick up the pieces,” Johnson said. “We have to rebuild the American people’s faith and trust in the Secret Service as an agency. It has an incredibly important responsibility in protecting presidents, former presidents, and other officials in the executive branch, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

In the initial wake of the shooting, Cheatle was emphatic that she would not step down. Cheatle was appointed by Biden to lead the Secret Service in 2022.

In an interview with CNN last week, Cheatle said that the agency was “solely responsible” for the design and implementation of security at the Pennsylvania rally site, where the now-deceased gunman fired shots at Trump from an unsecured rooftop just a few hundred feet from the rally stage.

A bullet hit Trump’s ear, and the incident left one rallygoer dead and others injured. As more has become known about the circumstances around the attempted attack, the Secret Service has been questioned about how it carried its protection of Trump that day, including the failure to control access to the rooftop and how the agency handled information, passed along by local law enforcement before the shooting, that identified the would-be assassin as a person acting suspiciously around the rally grounds.

The Secret Service and the Pennsylvania law enforcement, which assisted in the rally security efforts, have sometimes been at odds in their accounts of what happened and who was responsible for the lapses. Cheatle had pledged her agency’s full cooperation with the congressional and internal government examinations of Secret Service’s approach to that day. Cheatle had left a job managing Global Security at PepsiCo to take the USSS director post and before her stint in the private sector, had served in the Secret Service for 27 years.

Excerpts From Full Congressional Hearing

The 33 minutes in the video below from the Congressional hearing show how dissatisfied both Republican and Democratic members of Congress were with responses by U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. She had nine days to prepare but seemed unprepared to respond to many key questions.

SUPERCUT: These Were Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s Toughest Lines Of Questioning 7/23/24

Today’s House Oversight Committee hearing, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle experienced almost universally difficult lines of questioning, with these lawmakers serving up the toughest interrogations. Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

Full Congressional Hearing

Many were members of Congress on both sides of the aisle were deeply dissatisfied with the answers Director Cheatle provided to their questions and several called for her to resign. The full hearing was almost five hours.

LIVE: Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies on Trump shooting

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability at the first congressional hearing about the shooting of former President Donald Trump.