Secret Service Director Cheatle resigns in connection with Trump rally shooting
"Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle faced scrutiny after the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday in connection with the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, according to a copy of a letter sent to agency staff obtained by The Washington Post.
“As your Director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” Cheatle wrote. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that, I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director.”
The attack was the first against a U.S. leader on the elite protective agency’s watch in more than 40 years. Cheatle, a veteran Secret Service agent, had called the security failure involving a gunman shooting from an apparently unsecured roof at a Trump presidential campaign rally July 13 unacceptable and acknowledged that “the buck stops with me.”
She initially had said she would not resign and would cooperate with investigations into the shooting. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week that he had “100 percent confidence” in her abilities as Secret Service director, and a spokeswoman for President Biden said he supported her as well.
At a House oversight hearing Monday Cheatle signaled that she hoped to stay on the job and believed she was the best person for the position. But several lawmakers in both parties disagreed, saying she failed to answer detailed questions about what went wrong at the Trump rally and had lost their confidence
Several Republican lawmakers called on Cheatle to step aside, saying they had lost confidence in her ability to lead the agency that safeguards U.S. and foreign leaders.
“Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle should resign immediately,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) wrote Monday on X.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for new leadership at the agency on Wednesday as Cheatle oversaw protective services at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“Last week’s near-assassination of former President Trump was a grave attack on American democracy,” he wrote on X. “The nation deserves answers and accountability. New leadership at the Secret Service would be an important step in that direction.”
On Wednesday night, a group of Republicans furious over the assassination attempt trailed Cheatle through Fiserv Forum at the convention, demanding that she explain the security failures.
“This was an assassination attempt!” yelled Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, according to a video of the confrontation obtained by The Washington Post. “You owe the people answers! You owe President Trump answers!”
She and others expressed frustration that Cheatle did not answer their questions about the lapses.
“This is one of the greatest security failures in the history of the agency,” Blackburn said in a statement. “She can run but she cannot hide. She is a failed leader and she needs to immediately step down from her position.”
Trump, who has said he was struck by a bullet that “pierced” his right ear, wore a bandage over it as he attended the convention. The attack killed one man and gravely wounded two others.
The shooting was the first time in decades that a U.S. leader was attacked while under Secret Service protection. In 1981, a gunman fired at President Ronald Reagan in Washington, wounding the president and three others.
Top officials at the U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied requests for additional personnel and equipment sought by Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to the rally shooting in Pennsylvania, according to four people familiar with the requests.
Agents charged with protecting Trump requested magnetometers and more agents to screen attendees at large public gatherings he attended, as well as additional snipers and specialty teams at other outdoor events, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive security discussions. The requests were sometimes denied by senior officials at the agency who cited reasons including a lack of resources at an agency that has struggled with staffing shortages, they said.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Wednesday night that Cheatle would not resign.
Cheatle said after the shooting that the Secret Service is cooperating with multiple investigations into the shooting, including the criminal probe led by the FBI and an independent review ordered by Biden.
When Biden named Cheatle as his Secret Service director in 2022, some inside the agency opposed her appointment, according to a half-dozen written complaints Secret Service agents sent to The Post around that time and in the two years since.
In the complaints, her critics pointed to Cheatle’s lack of experience working in a senior post on a presidential protection detail — considered by many to be the pinnacle of agency service — and saying later in her tenure that she was excessively focused on hiring and promoting more women agents.
Cheatle’s handling of the shooting has further eroded support for her leadership inside the agency, according to a dozen current and former Secret Service officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. Many agents and Secret Service alumni were disturbed by the failure to sufficiently secure the rooftop the gunman scaled, they said.
In addition, six of the former agents, all of whom have served in presidential protection details, told The Post that they found Cheatle’s public statements about security for the Butler, Pa., campaign event embarrassing.
They said they were particularly outraged by two comments she made in an interview with ABC News that aired days after the shooting.
First, she said local police were responsible for securing the Agr building on the outer perimeter of the event, implying they were to blame for the gunman getting atop the roof and being able to shoot at Trump’s stage. Second, she said no officer was stationed on the roof the gunman used in part because of a “safety factor” related to its slope. The Post previously reported that Secret Service countersnipers at the rally Saturday were positioned on steeper roofs.
“She’s lost the confidence of the service,” said one former agent who had defended her tenure until her comments to ABC News. “She can’t get it back now.”
Mayorkas said at a White House briefing Monday that the review of the rally shooting will examine what happened before, during and after. He said it will be led by people outside of the government, “so that no question of its independence can be raised.”
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general, an independent watchdog who monitors and audits the agency, is also investigating the shooting.
Leaders in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives also have called on Cheatle to testify publicly.
Her resignation caps a series of tumultuous years for the Secret Service, amid concerns that weak spots in the agency’s training, strategy and operations remain unresolved.
Before the shooting, the agency was scrutinized for deleting text messages that agents sent during Trump supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, depriving investigators of potentially valuable evidence. The agency said the messages were lost during a planned replacement of the agents’ devices.
The agency has faced various security lapses through the years.
In November 2011 a man armed with a semiautomatic rifle fired shots into the White House. Agents at first dismissed the noises as a construction vehicle backfiring and did not realize for four days that bullets had hit the residence.
In 2012, the agency was embarrassed by agents who brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, while arranging advance security for President Barack Obama’s visit to the city. In 2014, an armed security guard with an arrest record was allowed to share an elevator with Obama during a presidential visit to Atlanta.
Days later, a man carrying a folding knife jumped the fence outside the White House, sprinted past a Secret Service agent and made it into the East Room before being tackled by an agent.
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson, who in 2013 became the first woman to lead the agency, resigned in 2014.
A blue-ribbon panel named by the Obama administration in 2014 recommended sweeping changes to the agency, including intensifying training and calling for new leadership.
In 2015, the House Oversight Committee published a report finding that the Secret Service had fumbled its response to multiple security threats over several years.
After the shooting at the Trump rally, lawmakers and others expressed frustration that many of the called-for recommendations remained unimplemented.
Cheatle is the agency’s 27th director and the second woman to lead the agency. She was sworn in on Sept. 17, 2022.
Cheatle had spent more than 25 years in the Secret Service in various roles, including running the Atlanta office and then becoming assistant director of the Office of Protective Operations, the first woman in that role.
“That achievement in a male-dominated industry was not lost on me,” Cheatle said in a 2022 interview with Security magazine.
Cheatle served on Biden’s protective detail when he was vice president. Biden awarded Cheatle with a Presidential Rank Award in 2021 for her exceptional performance over time.
She left the agency that year to become a senior director managing global security at PepsiCo North America, and returned in 2022 at Biden’s request.
When he asked her to return to lead the agency, Biden said in a statement that she had exceptional leadership abilities and “has my complete trust.”
Josh Dawsey and Nick Miroff contributed to this report."
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