Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, after refusing to answer a majority of questions Monday in the first congressional hearing on the attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, is facing overwhelming bipartisan calls for her resignation.
Ms. Cheatle repeatedly refused to relinquish her post despite mounting pressure during the nearly five-hour hearing.
“I think I’m the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time,” she told the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Lawmakers disagreed, especially after she dodged most of their questions and declined to provide basic details about security decisions for Mr. Trump’s July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“You were subpoenaed today to provide answers and, ma’am, you did not do that,” committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, told her as the hearing concluded.
Mr. Comer said his committee is not known as a model of bipartisanship but panel members “came together unanimously in our disappointment for your lack of answers.”
Although Mr. Comer and several Republicans on the panel called for Ms. Cheatle’s resignation before the hearing, none of the Democrats did.
Several Democrats and a few Republicans who had yet to call on her to resign decided that her lack of transparency during the hearing, coupled with their concerns about her leadership in the wake of the assassination attempt, warranted her ouster.
“The director has lost the confidence in Congress in a very urgent and tender moment in history,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the committee’s top Democrat, said in his closing remarks. He called that relationship “irretrievable” and said she should resign.
Mr. Comer and Mr. Raskin demonstrated their bipartisan unity by sending a joint letter to Ms. Cheatle later Monday reiterating their resignation calls because she failed to provide “serious institutional accountability and transparency.”
A few Republicans went further.
Rep. Nicholas Langworthy of New York introduced a resolution calling on President Biden to fire Ms. Cheatle. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida suggested forcing a vote to hold Ms. Cheatle in “inherent contempt” of Congress, which would allow lawmakers to fine her until she complies with their requests.
During the hearing, Ms. Cheatle admitted that the Secret Service “failed” in protecting Mr. Trump and insisted she was taking “full responsibility,” but she stopped short of explaining exactly what went wrong.
“I will move heaven and earth to make sure that an incident like July 13 never happens again,” she said.
Ms. Cheatle quickly frustrated members as she repeatedly declined to discuss the “specifics” of what happened or much of the advanced security planning, citing the ongoing federal investigations.
She would not say why the Secret Service or other law enforcement did not have someone positioned on the roof of the building outside of the official security perimeter that the shooter ultimately accessed. She provided only vague references to “overwatch” plans that had been approved for the entire area.
“I do not want to provide you with information that perhaps would contradict something that has been erroneously reported or is not factual,” she said. “But there clearly was a mistake. And we will make every effort to make sure that this never happens again.”
Ms. Cheatle refused to draw any conclusions about specific security failures until the Secret Service finished its internal investigation, which she said would take about 60 days.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, said the timeline for answers is “not acceptable.”
“We have to make policy decisions, and we have to make them now,” she said.
Ms. Cheatle clarified that she was not waiting for the report to take action.
“We have been conducting analysis all along, and we have been adding additional features to our security details since this incident occurred,” she said.
When pressed for details, she again did not offer many specifics but said the agency adjusted how it protects the 36 people under persistent Secret Service coverage and to protected sites around Washington.
She said the Secret Service adjusted the interior perimeter for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week after the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life. That contradicted Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the Secret Service coordinator for the convention, who said the agency made “no changes to our current operational security plans for this event.”
Rep. Michael Cloud, Texas Republican, questioned how the American people can trust Ms. Cheatle to properly investigate the security failures.
“You’re in charge of the investigation of your own failure,” he said. “So how is anybody in America supposed to be able to trust the results of that investigation as been anything transparent and genuine.”
Rep. Andy Biggs, Arizona Republican, said he would call on House Speaker Mike Johnson to assemble “a truly independent commission of qualified former Secret Service agents” because he doesn’t trust an internal investigation.
Lawmakers were able to force some answers out of Ms. Cheatle as the hearing continued.
“This is how disinformation flies, in the darkness, in the absence of information,” said Rep. Michael Waltz, Florida Republican.
He pressed Ms. Cheatle on claims by Secret Service agents that various requests for additional resources to protect Mr. Trump over the past two years had been repeatedly denied.
Ms. Cheatle said she was aware such requests were made but didn’t have them in front of her to confirm how many were denied. She said a denial does not mean the heart of the request was unfulfilled because the Secret Service looks at “ways that vulnerability can be mitigated in a different way.”
“For the events in Butler, there were no requests that were denied,” she said.
Several members questioned Ms. Cheatle about when the Secret Service identified Thomas Matthew Crooks as a suspicious person and later a threat. Lawmakers were told during private virtual briefings last week that the designations were made before Mr. Trump took the stage, but Ms. Cheatle said Crooks was not deemed a threat until “seconds” before he opened fire on Mr. Trump.
“The people that are in charge of protecting the president on that day would never bring the former president out if there was a threat that had been identified,” she said.
Amid continuing probing on that topic, Ms. Cheatle went to great lengths to distinguish between the designation of a suspicious person — something she said is common for large events — and identifying someone as a threat.
Ms. Cheatle said spotting someone with a backpack and a range finder, as local law enforcement did with Crooks, is enough reason to label them suspicious but not a threat. Range finders are not prohibited at outdoor rallies.
Although the Secret Service was alerted “somewhere between two and five times” to a suspicious person outside the rally, Ms. Cheatle said she did not know of any Secret Service agents who had found or spoken with Crooks after those alerts.
As Ms. Cheatle testified, she was facing a poster propped behind the dais of the now legendary photo of Mr. Trump, bloodied across his face but defiantly raising his fist with an American flag in the background.
“Because Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you look incompetent. If Donald Trump had been killed, you would have looked culpable,” said Rep. Michael Turner, Ohio Republican.
Mr. Turner, who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, had pressed Ms. Cheatle on whether the Secret Service provided adequate security for Mr. Trump given a long-standing general threat against him from Iran and a more specific threat disclosed closer to the rally.
“Yes, I think it was,” she said.
That angered Mr. Turner, who told her an Iranian assassin would be more competent than a 20-year-old lone gunman. He said the FBI doesn’t think the Secret Service is taking the Iranian threat seriously enough.
Only after several members pointed out that Ms. Cheatle’s refusal to answer questions would allow conspiracy theories to continue to take root did she finally answer questions, swatting away some of the theories.
Ms. Cheatle said the existing evidence points to Crooks having acted alone. She rejected theories of a plot by high-ranking government officials and said there is no evidence of foreign involvement “at this time.”
She denied allegations that agents who might have been used for Mr. Trump’s detail were assigned to a nearby event with first lady Jill Biden.
“There were no assets that were diverted,” she said.
Ms. Cheatle drew ire when she said she had not personally visited the Butler rally site and had not fired anyone in the Secret Service who failed to protect the former president that day.
While most lawmakers remained relatively calm through their public scoldings of Ms. Cheatle, a few broke traditional decorum.
“You’re full of s—- today,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican. “You’re being completely dishonest.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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