Kimberly Cheatle has resigned as director of the US Secret Service, after refusing to do so in the wake of the attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
A shooter nicked Trump’s ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, killing one person in the audience and injuring two others before Secret Service snipers managed to neutralize him. Thomas Crooks was able to position himself on a roof that had a clear shot to where Trump was speaking, which the protective detail had inexplicably left unguarded.
Cheatle tendered her resignation on Tuesday morning, one day after an acrimonious congressional hearing during which both Republicans and Democrats accused her of withholding information and refusing to take responsibility for security failures at the rally.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed,” Cheatle told the House Oversight Committee on Monday, describing the Butler shooting as the “most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades.”
Even though Cheatle took “full responsibility” for the lapse at the congressional hearing, she insisted she was “the best person” to lead the agency at this time, and stated that she had “full confidence in the men and women of the Secret Service.”
On Tuesday, she sent out an email informing agency staff of her departure.
“In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director,” she wrote, according to AP.
President Joe Biden confirmed Cheatle’s resignation, thanking her “for her service to our family” and announcing that he would be appointing a new director soon, according to a statement posted on the White House website.
Cheatle faced calls to resign almost immediately after the incident, but resisted for more than a week. In an ABC News interview, she tried to justify the absence of Secret Service agents on the roof from which Crooks shot by saying it was too “sloped” and posed a security hazard.
Damning details have continued to emerge ever since. Whistleblowers have said the protection detail at the rally was composed mainly of Homeland Security personnel and temporary Secret Service agents. By the time Trump appeared at the Republican National Convention, he had a different set of agents as his bodyguards.
The FBI is currently conducting a criminal investigation into the assassination attempt. The Department of Homeland Security, to which the Secret Service belongs, has opened three internal investigations into security lapses. Congress is also discussing a probe into the events in Butler.