US Secret Service chief resigns following Trump assassination attempt

[July 24, 2024]  By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after the agency came under harsh scrutiny for its failure to stop a would-be assassin from wounding former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally, the White House said on Tuesday.

The Secret Service, which is responsible for the protection of current and former U.S. presidents, faces a crisis after a gunman was able to fire on Trump from a roof overlooking the outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.

"The independent review to get to the bottom of what happened on July 13 continues, and I look forward to assessing its conclusions," Democratic President Joe Biden said in a statement. "We all know what happened that day can never happen again."

Secret Service Deputy Director Ronald Rowe, a 24-year veteran of the agency, will serve as acting director, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

The Secret Service faces investigations from multiple congressional committees and the internal watchdog of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, its parent organization, over its performance. Biden, who has ended his reelection campaign, has also called for an independent review.

Cheatle faced bipartisan condemnation when she appeared before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee on Monday, declining to answer questions from frustrated lawmakers about the security plan for the rally and how law enforcement responded to the suspicious behavior of the gunman.

Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers had called on her to resign. NBC News was first to report that Cheatle would leave her post.

Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, was grazed in the right ear and one rallygoer was killed in the gunfire. The gunman, identified as a 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.

"While Director Cheatle’s resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward," James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement. "We will continue our oversight of the Secret Service."

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle attends a House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing on the security lapses that allowed an attempted assassination of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 22, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo

Cheatle, who has led the agency since 2022, told lawmakers she took responsibility for the shooting, calling it the largest failure by the Secret Service since then-President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.

House leaders said on Tuesday they planned to form a bipartisan task force to probe the shooting.

Much of the criticism has focused on the failure to secure the roof of an industrial building where the gunman was perched about 150 yards (140 m) from the stage where Trump was speaking.

The rooftop was declared outside the Secret Service security perimeter for the event, a decision criticized by former agents and lawmakers.

Cheatle held a top security role at PepsiCo when Biden named her Secret Service director in 2022. She previously served 27 years in the agency.

She took over following a series of scandals involving the Secret Service that scarred the reputation of an elite and insular agency.

Ten Secret Service agents lost their jobs after revelations they brought women, some of them prostitutes, back to their hotel rooms ahead of a trip to Colombia by then-President Barack Obama in 2012.

The agency also faced allegations that it erased text messages from around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Those messages were later sought by a congressional panel probing the riot.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward, additional reporting by Ted Hesson, David Morgan and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Scott Malone, Cynthia Osterman and Nick Zieminski)

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