Head of the Secret Service resigns over security failures in attack against Trump

Kimberly A. Cheatle, director of the Secret Service, resigned on Tuesday, 10 days after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, the agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, by her own admission. The move came one day after she appeared at the Capitol, where lawmakers from both parties demanded that she step down.

“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed,” she added, before assuming “full responsibility” for what happened that day. She also said that she feels “proud beyond words” of how her people reacted after the shooting. Cheatle, who has been in the force for three decades and worked protecting Joe Biden when he was vice president, and Dick Cheney before that, holds a political position and has authority over 8,000 agents.

She gave the news to her employees in an e-mail sent on Tuesday and obtained by the U.S. media. In it, she adds that during the rally in Butler (Pennsylvania), the Secret Service, which had been entrusted to protect, “fell short of that mission.” In the letter, she says that “in light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.”

“I do not want my calls for resignation to be a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission,”said Cheatle in the e-mail.

President Biden, who on Tuesday was planning to return to the White House after spending several days at Rehoboth while he recovered from Covid, made a statement to thank Cheatle for her work these past years: “As a leader, it takes honor, courage and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service.” The president added that he will soon name a successor.

On the day of the rally, a volunteer firefighter named Cory Comperatore was shot and killed by the attacker, Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old whose motives remain unclear, while two other people were wounded: David Dutch and James Copenhaver, who are both are out of danger.

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