The director of the U.S. Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle admitted that the agency failed to protect Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“We failed,” Cheatle, who is facing calls to resign, said during testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
The Secret Service director appeared Monday before a congressional committee as calls mount for her to resign over security failures at a rally where a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
Director Cheatle was grilled by lawmakers in the first congressional hearing over the July 13 Pennsylvania rally shooting that left one spectator dead. Trump was wounded in the ear and two other attendees were injured after Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed atop the roof of a nearby building and opened fire.
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.
“This tragedy was preventable,” said Rep. James Comer, the chair of Oversight committee. “The Secret Service has a zero-fail mission but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally,” Comer said.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has called what happened a “failure” while several lawmakers have called on Cheatle to resign or for 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, a Democrat, 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 the president 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 that 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 Conventional as well as Trump’s appearances. He also searched for information about major depressive order.
