The US Secret Service “failed” in its mission to protect Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was targeted in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on July 13, Director Kimberly Cheatle said Monday during a congressional hearing.
“The solemn mission of the Secret Service is to protect the leaders of our nation […]”On July 13, we failed,” Kimberly Cheatle told a House committee.
“As director, I take full responsibility for any security failures,” she added, calling the events “the most significant operational failure of the secret service in decades.”
Since July 13, his service, responsible for protecting high-ranking American officials, has faced criticism over possible failings and human failings. And calls for Mr.me Cheatle, appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden, came from both sides of the political spectrum.
An independent investigation has been ordered to determine how a gunman ended up on the roof of a building with a semi-automatic rifle, less than 150 meters from the stage where Donald Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in the northeast of the country.
The 78-year-old former US president was slightly injured in the ear in the shooting. Photos of him with blood running down his face and his fist raised went viral. One bystander was killed and two others were seriously injured.
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead by Secret Service officers 26 seconds after the first of eight shots he fired.
Protected persons “in danger”
This weekend, US media reported that the Secret Service had rejected requests to increase Donald Trump’s security in the past.
This service is responsible for the security of the president, vice president, former presidents and their families, as well as major candidates in elections and foreign heads of state visiting the United States.
At the start of the hearing, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Republican James Comer, assured that this “tragedy was avoidable”, saying he was convinced that Kimberly Cheatle “must resign”.
“The secret services do not have the right to make the slightest mistake in their missions, but they failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the election rally” in Pennsylvania, he added.
According to him, the service, which “has thousands of employees and a large budget”, has now become synonymous with “incompetence”.
A Republican congressman from Ohio, Michael Turner, said that if Mr.me Cheatle was not leaving her post on her own, President Biden had to “fire her because her life, the lives of Donald Trump and everyone” the Secret Service protects are “in danger.”
A former Trump White House physician said over the weekend that the ex-president has a two-centimeter wound on the top of his right ear that is beginning to heal.
“The bullet came within an inch of entering his head,” said Ronny Jackson, now an ultraconservative Texas congressman who has said he has been treating the Republican candidate since the assassination attempt.