Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle acknowledged Monday that her agency had disagreed with the Trump campaign over some requests for protection, but insisted no corners were cut on July 13, the day former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated.
Ms. Cheatle told the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that the shooter wasn’t deemed a threat to Mr. Trump until just “seconds” before he opened fire.
But she had few answers about the other big questions of the day.
She couldn’t tell the panel in Monday’s testimony how far out the security perimeter was, how the would-be assassin gained access to a rooftop with a 200-yard line of sight to Mr. Trump, how he got the rifle to the roof, how many bullets he fired nor which federal, state or local agency was supposed to be conducting “overwatch” of the roof.
She also couldn’t say why warnings about the man climbing on the rooftop minutes before the shooting weren’t communicated to the president and the agents around him.
“There was clearly a breakdown and a failure that day,” Ms. Cheatle said.
She danced around reports that Mr. Trump’s campaign had been denied the resources it asked for, but insisted he got everything he requested on the day of the shooting.
“There were no assets denied for that event in Butler on the 13th,” Ms. Cheatle told the Republican-led committee.
She tacitly acknowledged disagreements with the campaign over some security requests at other times, but wouldn’t say how often it has happened. She assured lawmakers that didn’t leave Mr. Trump vulnerable.
“There are times when we can fill a request that doesn’t necessarily have to be with a Secret Service asset or resource,” she said.
Her weak answers concerned Democrats and enraged Republicans.
“Right now you haven’t answered, I think, any questions,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican.
SEE ALSO: Rep. Jamie Raskin calls for AR-15 ban in wake of Trump shooting
Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, wondered why Ms. Cheatle is still on the job. He asked her about one of her predecessors, Stuart Knight, who ran the agency at the time President Reagan was shot in 1981.
“He remained on duty,” Ms. Cheatle said.
“He resigned. He resigned,” Mr. Khanna said.
The sentiment was bipartisan.
“It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign,” Rep. James Comer, the committee chairman, told her.
Ms. Cheatle was not dissuaded.
“I will remain on and be responsible to the agency, to this committee, to the former president and to the American public,” she said.
She said her lack of public answers doesn’t mean she’s moving behind the scenes.
“I’m not waiting for a report to take action,” she said. “We have been conducting analysis all along and we have been adding additional features to our security details since this incident occurred.”
As Ms. Cheatle testified, she was facing a large photo of Mr. Trump after the shooting, bloodied in the ear but defiantly raising his fist with an American flag waving in the back.
In addition to Mr. Trump, two rally-goers were critically wounded and one man was slain in the gunfire.
Ms. Cheatle rejected Republican accusations that a Democratic campaign event in Pittsburgh featuring first lady Jill Biden that same day got four times as many agents from the local Secret Service office as Mr. Trump’s rally did.
“There were sufficient resources,” she said.
“President Trump got shot!” countered Rep. William Timmons, South Carolina Republican. “There were not sufficient resources, clearly.”
Ms. Cheatle said the shooter had been identified as a “suspicious” individual on the day of the shooting, but said he had not been identified as an actual threat. She said agents would not have let Mr. Trump on stage if they had deemed him a threat.
The shooter wasn’t actually deemed a “threat” until “seconds” before he began to fire at the former president, she said.
The Secret Service chief said the shooter had a rangefinder with him, but she said that’s not considered a prohibited item. She didn’t know whether agents had confronted the man about the rangefinder.
Ms. Cheatle did acknowledge knowing about a specific recent threat from Iran to Mr. Trump but said she’s convinced they are prepared.
That angered Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House intelligence committee, 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.
“When I raised this issue with [FBI Director Christopher] Wray he was incensed, he was shocked that the threat assessment of Iran did not seem to be as he and I discussed ‘baked in’ to the security footprint and your threat assessment,” Mr. Turner said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, said Ms. Cheatle needed to do better on her answers to head off a truly dangerous moment.
“The violence that could break out in this political moment regardless of party, in the event of someone getting hurt, constitutes a national security threat to the country,” she said.
Ms. Cheatle repeatedly praised the agents who rushed to the stage to shield Mr. Trump with their bodies, and at one point graded them an “A.” But she declined to offer a grade for the planning that led up to what she called a “failure.”
The Secret Service has 36 people it is protecting in perpetuity and also provides protection for visiting heads of state such as Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, and the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York in September.
The agency has 8,000 employees and a budget of $3.1 billion.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.