Washington — Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies Monday before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee about security failures that allowed a 20-year-old gunman to to pull on Former President Donald Trump and a crowd of his supporters at a rally more than a week ago.
Cheatle came under intense pressure to resign following the assassination attempt, in which Trump and two others were injured and a participant in the rally was killed.
The FBI has identified Thomas Matthew Crooks He was killed by a Secret Service sniper. Lawmakers are wondering how Crooks was able to access a rooftop so close to where Trump was speaking at his campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told Cheatle directly that she should resign, saying that with her at the helm of the Secret Service, it was questionable whether the president, first lady, White House and presidential candidates would be safe.
“The Secret Service is on a mission to never fail, but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally,” Comer said in his opening remarks. “The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a large budget, but it has now become the face of incompetence.”
Cheatle, who has resisted calls to resign, told committee members that the Secret Service failed in its mission to protect the nation’s leaders on July 13 and said she took full responsibility for any security failures.
“We must learn from what happened and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like the one on July 13 never happens again,” she said in her opening remarks. “I have never stopped thinking about what we should have done differently.”
Here is the latest news from the hearing:
