Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, joined the growing calls on Monday for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign following the massive security failure that occurred this month at a rally held by former President Donald Trump.
Raskin observed during his closing statement that Cheatle was unable to answer many questions during a contentious, hourslong committee hearing about the assassination attempt on Trump. In an unusual display of bipartisanship, Raskin said he would therefore join Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in asking Cheatle to step down.
“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,” Raskin said.
Minutes later, Raskin and Comer published a joint letter to Cheatle formalizing their demand that she resign.
BREAKING- Chairman James Comer and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin call for United States Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle to resign.
Director Cheatle:
On July 13, 2024, the United States Secret Service under your leadership failed to protect former President Donald Trump from an… pic.twitter.com/AmxTMmmMgX
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 22, 2024
Cheatle, who has been with the Secret Service for nearly 30 years, is facing pressure to leave her position after the rally on July 13, when a shooter accessed a rooftop in close proximity to Trump and was able to fire multiple rounds into the crowd.
Authorities identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as the gunman but have yet to establish a motive for the shooting, which killed one person and seriously injured two others. One of the bullets came within inches of killing Trump and instead nicked the side of his ear, causing a minor injury.
“I also didn’t see any daylight between the members of the two parties today at the hearing in terms of our bafflement and outrage about the shocking operational failures that led to disaster and near catastrophe on July 13, 2024,” Raskin said.
Cheatle repeatedly avoided answering questions during the hearing, deferring to the Secret Service’s open internal investigation and the inquiries being conducted by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, and several other entities. Cheatle said she expected the Secret Service to complete its review within 60 days and pledged that “there will be accountability” at that point.
Yet lawmakers signaled that they expected Cheatle to have more information to bring to the hearing nine days after the assassination attempt.
Raskin said the “extraordinary communications gap between the director of the Secret Service and Congress” was “depressing.”
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Comer concluded the hearing by noting how his committee had subpoenaed Cheatle to testify.
“You were subpoenaed today to provide answers, and, ma’am, you did not do that,” the Kentucky Republican said.
Cheatle acknowledged during her opening statement that the incident was “the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades.”
The director said at one point that the Secret Service had been alerted to a “suspicious person” two to five times before the shooting transpired, but she did not provide specifics or clarify how early agents had learned about Crooks’s presence, citing the open investigations into the matter.
Cheatle said in a recent television interview with ABC News that she did not plan to resign.
