Reps. Comer and Raskin ask Secret Service Director Cheatle to resign over Trump shooting
WASHINGTON ? The House Oversight Committee's hearing with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Monday saw the leading members of both parties call for her resignation over her agency's failure to prevent the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
The committee chair, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said Cheatle should step down amid lawmakers from both parties excoriating her for what she acknowledged was a "colossal failure" to prevent the assassination attempt.
“I don't want to add to the director's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I will be joining the chairman in calling for the resignation of the director, just because I think that this relationship is irretrievable at this point, and I think that the director has lost the confidence of Congress at a very urgent and tender moment in the history of the country, and we need to very quickly move beyond this,” Raskin said.
Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, accused the Secret Service of being outsmarted by the gunman, who authorities say borrowed his father’s AR-style rifle in the attack July 13 in at Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“How did a 20-year-old loner with a week's notice pick the absolute best location to assassinate President Trump when the entire Secret Service missed it?” Fallon asked at a hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. “Director Cheatle, on your leadership, your agency got outsmarted and outmaneuvered by a 20-year-old. How can we have any confidence that you could stop trained professionals from a nefarious nation state?”
“Those are absolutely questions that we need to have answered,” Cheatle replied.
Lawmakers also voiced impatience with Cheatle's vague answers and 60-day timeline for an internal review of the planning and response to the shooting. Raskin said nobody wants to lose a presidential candidate to a shooting.
“This is deadly serious business,” Raskin said.
At various points, Cheatle acknowledged that agents should have prevented the gunman from climbing the roof of a building 150 yards from Trump's lectern and firing eight shots. But she admitted that the agency still doesn’t have key pieces of information, such as when the Secret Service's sniper team on a nearby rooftop got the warnings about the gunman before the shooting began.
"I don't have the timeline of how the individual accessed the roof, where they accessed the roof, or how long they were on the roof," Cheatle said.
Lawmakers occasionally erupted at Cheatle and accused her of withholding information from them. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., got her to acknowledge the agency's performance was a "colossal failure."
“You’re full of s--- today,” Mace told Cheatle. “You’re just being completely dishonest.”
Here are six takeaways from the hearing:
Secret Service distinguishes between 'suspicious' behavior and a 'threat'
Lawmakers described a timeline about how law enforcement officers identified a suspicious man nearly an hour before the gunfire erupted without authorities confronting the individual.
Local police officers flagged the suspect with a range-finder at 5:20 p.m., radioed their concerns and sent around pictures, said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M.
At 5:51 p.m. the Secret Service was notified about the suspicious person by state police. A minute later, they distributed the information.
Trump took the stage at 6:03 p.m. At 6:09 p.m., rallygoers saw the suspect climbing onto the roof of the building about 150 yards from Trump’s lectern. At 6:11 p.m. shots rang out.
“That doesn’t look like suspicious behavior, that looks like threatening behavior,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Calif., said after playing a video from rallygoers of the man climbing on the roof. “That’s a threat right there. The guy’s on the roof and everybody’s yelling at him.”
Cheatle said the Secret Service would have never allowed Trump to take the stage if they were aware of a threat, but that the man had only been identified as suspicious.
Cheatle said range-finders are common at outdoor events. She didn’t have details about whether anyone confronted the shooter.
“The Secret Service would have paused the rally had they known there was an actual threat,” Cheatle said.
Nearly one-minute delay in removing Trump from stage after shooting began
Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., questioned the delay of more than a minute in removing Trump from the stage after he was shot in the ear on July 13. The shooter had several magazines of bullets and got off eight shots before he was killed by the Secret Service, Lynch said.
“There was considerable delay in removing the president from podium after the shooting began,” Lynch said. “He had the capacity and the ability if he was not neutralized to basically mow down that whole Secret Service detachment, as well as the president.” Cheatle said agents threw themselves on top of Trump in under three seconds after the shooting began.
“Our personnel created a body bunker on top of the president, shielding him,” Cheatle said.
Lawmakers voice impatience with the pace of the investigation
Cheatle said the Secret Service is conducting a review of its planning and responses to the assassination attempt expected to be completed in 60 days. Lawmakers complained that wasn’t fast enough with a presidential election looming and political polarization running high.
“There need to be answers,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said. “This is not a moment of theater. We have to make policy decisions and we have to make them now.”
Cheatle said the agency has been conducting an analysis since the shooting and adapting its security. The agency made adjustments at the Republican National Convention last week and for officials protected in Washington, she said. The agency has also made changes for President Joe Biden no longer campaigning, Vice President Kamala Harris seeking the Democratic nomination and in anticipation of her choice of running mate, Cheatle said.
“I think it shows how dynamic the environment is that this agency works in every day,” Cheatle said.
"I want to assure you and everyone on this committee that I'm not waiting for a report to take action,” Cheatle added. “I assure you when the review is completed, there will be accountability.”
Secret Service provided all requested security at Trump rally: Cheatle
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked whether the Secret Service turned down requests from the Trump campaign for additional security, accusing the agency of “cutting corners.”
Cheatle said a denial of a request for staffing doesn’t equate to a vulnerability. She said threats and risks can be mitigated through personnel or technology. She wouldn’t address whether previous Trump requests for staffing had been rejected, but she said none were for the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot.
“For the event in Butler, there were no requests that were denied,” Cheatle said.
After previous rejections, Jordan said, “Maybe they got tired of asking.”
Democrats focus on gun control after mass shooting
Several Democrats on the Oversight and Accountability Committee called for a resumption of the assault weapons ban to protect all Americans.
Congress banned the sale of the AR-15, the weapon used in the attack on Trump, and other semiautomatic firearms in 1994. But the ban lapsed in 2004 and Raskin said shooting deaths began climbing again. Last year, there were 655 mass shootings that killed 712 people and wounded nearly 2,700, he said.
There have been 10 mass shootings since the attempt on Trump’s life and the incident at his rally wasn’t even the deadliest on that day, a mass shooting which killed four people and wounded 10 at a nightclub in Birmingham, Alabama, Raskin said.
“The list is a grim reminder of the horrific damage and death wrought by assault weapons, and the AR-15 in particular, that have taken the lives of our children, parents, colleagues and neighbors,” Raskin said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Secret Service head Cheatle blamed for Trump shooting at House hearing
