Secret Service director says Trump shooting was agency’s biggest failure in decades

As calls mount for her to resign, agency chief Kimberly Cheatle tells congressional hearing she will ‘take corrective action to ensure that it never happens again’

Republican US presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, after an assassination attempt, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Republican US presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, after an assassination attempt, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The assassination attempt of former US president Donald Trump was the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, director Kimberly Cheatle told lawmakers on Monday, as calls mounted for her to resign.

“On July 13, we failed,” Cheatle told the first congressional hearing over the shooting at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month. Cheatle said she took “full responsibility” for the security lapses, and she vowed to “move heaven and earth” to make sure there’s no repeat of it.

“I accept responsibility for this tragedy,” Cheatle said. “We are going to look into how this happened, and we are going to take corrective action to ensure that it never happens again.”

Cheatle was testifying Monday before the House Oversight Committee as calls mount for her to resign over security failures at a rally where a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate the Republican former president and current presidential candidate.

Trump was wounded in the ear, two other attendees were injured and one was killed after Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed atop the roof of a nearby building and opened fire on July 13.

Lawmakers have been expressing anger over how the gunman could get so close to the Republican presidential nominee, when he was supposed to be carefully guarded. The Secret Service has acknowledged it denied some requests by Trump’s campaign for increased security at his events in the years before the assassination attempt.

US Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle is sworn in to testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee at the Capitol in Washington, July 22, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has called what happened a “failure,” while several lawmakers have called on Cheatle to resign or for US President Joe Biden to fire her. The Secret Service has said Cheatle does not intend to step down. So far, she retains the support of Biden and Mayorkas.

Before the shooting, local law enforcement had noticed Crooks pacing around the edges of the rally, peering into the lens of a rangefinder toward the rooftops behind the stage where Trump later stood, officials have told The Associated Press. An image of Crooks was circulated by officers stationed outside the security perimeter.

Witnesses later saw him climbing up the side of a squat manufacturing building that was within 135 meters (157 yards) from the stage. He then set up his AR-style rifle and lay on the rooftop, a detonator in his pocket to set off crude explosive devices that were stashed in his car parked nearby.

The attack on Trump was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It was the latest in a series of security lapses by the agency, which has drawn investigations and public scrutiny over the years.

Authorities have been hunting for clues into what motivated Crooks, but so far have not found any ideological bent that could help explain his actions. Investigators who searched his phone found photos of Trump, Biden and other senior government officials, and also found that he had looked up the dates for the Democratic National Convention as well as Trump’s appearances. He also searched for information about major depressive order.

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