WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — The chair and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee called on U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign after she faced lawmakers Monday on Capitol Hill in a combative hearing.
Cheatle was grilled over the agency’s failure to properly protect former President Donald Trump from an attempted assassination.
Lawmakers from both political parties, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, are calling for Cheatle’s resignation.
Following the hearing, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., announced his intention to file articles of impeachment as Cheatle has refused to resign from her position.
In an exchange with Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., Cheatle resisted saying if she would have resigned if Trump had been killed in the shooting. She said she would take full responsibility for failures with the Secret Service but would not directly answer the question of resignation.
Cheatle was on the receiving end of heated questions from lawmakers Monday, many of which emitted frustration toward the director’s non-response answers in which she often deferred information.
While Cheatle has conducted closed-door interviews over the past week, she testified publicly under oath Monday, directly answering questions from the House Oversight Committee.
“A former president and current candidate for president was shot in the head by a sniper within 500 feet of the podium. This is unacceptable. We are concerned the Secret Service lacks the proper management to keep protectees safe from bad actors,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said.
“Americans demand accountability, but no one has yet to be fired for this historic failure,” he continued.
Cheatle’s testimony
Cheatle appeared before the House Oversight Committee Monday, swearing under oath to provide truthful testimony regarding the response during the Trump assassination attempt.
The agency’s director started her testimony, taking full responsibility for the agency’s failures.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed. As the Director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse,” Cheatle said. “As an agency, we are fully cooperating with the FBI’s investigation, the oversight you have initiated here, and conducting our own internal mission assurance review at my direction.”
Cheatle continued, “We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure an incident like July 13th does not happen again. Thinking about what we should have done differently is never far from my thoughts.”
She also refused to let any of the responsibility fall on the agency’s personnel, who she says is ready to pay the ultimate price for Secret Service protectees at all times.
“The Secret Service has an incredible culture. Our men and women place service over self. They come in every day willing to risk their lives for our protective mission. … We have an incredible mission and our culture is we will get the job done no matter what,” Cheatle said.
Legislators repeatedly pushed Cheatle for specifics on the preparation for the rally, identities of agents involved and details about the ongoing investigation. She declined to answer questions about personnel and often failed to have detailed answers to the questions asked.
As the hearing wound down, Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., called the relationship between Cheatle and Congress irreparable. He also used the conclusion to talk about gun control, something brought up by several of his Democratic colleagues, calling it the bigger issue in the country.
In his conclusion, Comer called the hearing a rare moment of bipartisanship as members on both sides of the aisle were frustrated with the lack of answers from Cheatle and the Secret Service.
Trump’s requests for increased security denied in the past
The hearing comes as the Secret Service backtracked over whether it previously denied Trump campaign requests for more security.
Cheatle acknowledged that over the last few years, there were instances where requests for security details were denied largely due to a lack of resources.
Former Secret Service agent Robert McDonald told NewsNation on Monday that the Secret Service has a finite number of agents, meaning that at times, hard decisions have to be made on how to allocate those resources for various protective events.
However, the director noted that the USSS did not deny any of Trump’s requests for more security at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman opened fire on Trump. One rally attendee was killed, and two others were hospitalized.
The former president said in a recent interview with Fox News that he wasn’t warned about the threat on the day of the shooting.
“No, nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem, and I would’ve waited for 15. They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 5 minutes.’ Something. I think that was a mistake,” Trump said.
Secret Service performance under review
An independent commission will review the performance of the Secret Service before, during and after Trump’s assassination attempt.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the bipartisan commission members, including former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and several advisers to former President George W. Bush.
The panel will have 45 days to review the planning actions of the Secret Service, state and local authorities during the rally.
In a statement, commission members said, “We formed this bipartisan group to quickly identify improvements the U.S. Secret Service can implement to enhance their work. We must all work together to ensure events like July 13 do not happen again.”