Facing Impeachment Threat, Secret Service Chief Kimberly Cheatle Resigns

Facing two impeachment measures, potential perjury charges, and dozens of calls to quit or be fired, the director of the U.S. Secret Service turned in her resignation Tuesday — less than 24 hours after she withered under questioning about her failure to prevent the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13.

“In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that, I have made the difficult decision to step down as your [d]irector,” wrote then-Director Kimberly Cheatle in a lengthy resignation letter to her fellow agents. Her decision to quit came 10 days after a sniper’s bullet narrowly missed Trump’s skull, and subsequent rounds claimed the life of 50-year-old retired fire chief Corey Comperatore and injured two other people. U.S. Secret Service Deputy Director Ronald Rowe Jr. will serve as acting director until the president appoints a new director.

Cheatle’s tight-lipped refusal to provide any meaningful information to a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing Monday morning proved the last straw. Cheatle defiantly refused to answer most questions, drawing pointed criticism and calls to resign from politicians ranging from conservative stalwart Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

“Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures,” wrote the Republican chairman and Democratic ranking member of the committee on Monday. “We call on you to resign.”

Others felt the resignation was too kind a fate. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) introduced one article of impeachment for dereliction of duty shortly after Monday’s hearing. “After her abysmal testimony today and insistence on refusing to resign, we have no choice but to impeach Director Cheatle,” said Steube. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who peppered her questions with outbursts of profanity, also filed a motion to hold a vote on impeaching Cheatle within 48 hours.

The House Oversight and Accountability “Committee’s hearing resulted in Director Cheatle’s resignation, and there will be more accountability to come,” said Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.). “Cheatle’s resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) agreed that Cheatle “should have resigned immediately following the shooting. Biden should have fired her. ... This is only the beginning of what needs to be sweeping accountability for the agency.”

During the hearing, Cheatle repeatedly insisted she could not reveal any details due to an “ongoing investigation.” Yet she gave some details to ABC News and occasionally violated her alleged criteria by giving House members details of the shooting, carried out by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

Under questioning from Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.), Cheatle revealed that the Secret Service had not recorded any radio communications that day. “We do not have radio communications from that day,” said Cheatle.

Yet most of Cheatle’s answers came mired in the fog of ambiguity. When asked if Secret Service agents confronted Crooks, Cheatle responded, “I do not have those details.” After Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) asked if Cheatle had compiled a timeline of events, which would allow her to answer specific questions, the director answered, “I have a timeline that does not have specifics.” Cheatle told Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), “I can speak to you in generalities.”

Cheatle eventually told Rep. Max Frost (D-Fla.) that Secret Service had been notified “somewhere between two and five times” of a suspicious person on the grounds before the first shot. “The shooter was photographed twice by security officers prior to the shooting. A police officer saw the shooter on the ground and reported him with a photograph as a suspicious person. Multiple local law enforcement officers identified the shooter, radioed that he was acting suspiciously near the event’s magnetometers. A local law enforcement tactical team saw the shooter on a roof and notified other security services, and also photographed him. One police officer who photographed the shooter saw him scoping out the roof and carrying a range finder.”

“This was obviously a lapse in judgement” and “gross incompetence” for the Secret Service, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night. “It is by the grace of God that Trump is alive, but we’re glad that she stepped down.”

Luna confronted Cheatle during testimony Monday, accusing the director of lying under oath. “You have been up here basically stonewalling our ability to get the answers to the American people,” Luna told Cheatle. “We are all sitting ducks with you directing the Secret Service.”

Luna asked Comer to consider whether he should “bring perjury charges against the director.”

The Biden administration has faced charges it has refused to cooperate with Congress since the weekend of the attempted shooting. “After the Secret Service agreed to brief members of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security took over communications with the committee and has since refused to confirm a briefing time,” said a statement from the Oversight Committee emailed to Family Research Council from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “The Oversight Committee has a long record of bipartisan oversight of the Secret Service, and the unprofessionalism we are witnessing from the current DHS leadership is unacceptable.”

On Monday, Cheatle admitted that no one had been disciplined for their role in the attempted assassination.

“She gave some of the most appalling testimony I’ve seen in my eight years in Congress,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Ingraham on Tuesday night. “She should have been asked to leave the day after, two days after” the assassination attempt.

Khanna labeled the shooting “the most serious security lapse since President [Ronald] Reagan was shot in 1981.”

“Do you know what Stuart Knight did — he was in charge, at the time, of the Secret Service — do you know what he did?” Khanna asked Cheatle on Monday.

“He remained on duty,” Cheatle stated with misguided confidence.

“He resigned,” Khanna corrected. “I just don’t think this is partisan. If you have an assassination attempt on a president, or a former president, or a candidate, you need to resign.”

“I would say that about anyone,” Khanna concluded.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), told Cheatle during the hearings, “I will be joining the chairman [Republican James Comer of Kentucky] in calling for the resignation of the director.”

President Donald Trump took to social media to complain of the poor job Cheatle had done at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for [d]emocracy,” he posted on Truth Social. CNN’s Jim Acosta called Trump’s criticism of an event lambasted by both parties “wildly irresponsible.”

Yet a statement bearing the name of President Joe Biden on Tuesday effusively praised Cheatle, whom he credited with “selflessly dedicated and risked her life” over a career marked by “honor, courage, and incredible integrity.”

Expert observers confessed their disappointment in Cheatle’s candor. “We were hoping and praying that the Secret Service director — who has said, ‘Look, the buck stops with me. I’m responsible’ — would provide details on exactly what happened,” said Tim Miller, a former Secret Service agent and founder of Lionheart International Services Group, on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Monday evening. “We need to restore the faith of the American people in the United States Secret Service. We don’t want people going to rallies fearful, wondering if the security is in place, or [if] they would lose their lives or the lives of their families, as we saw last week.”

Instead of restoring lost faith, the Secret Service advised Trump on Tuesday to stop holding his signature outdoor rallies, a decision that could deeply impact the former president’s hope to return to the Oval Office. That suggestion comes after prosecutor Alvin Bragg, with help from former Biden administration Justice Department officials, detained Trump in a New York City courtroom, rendering him unable to travel to campaign events in pivotal swing states. Trump responded by holding massive outdoor rallies in neighboring New Jersey.

Miller said he was shocked to learn the Secret Service had only “roughly 8,000 slots filled for 9,500 positions,” a deficit of “1,500 agents in a campaign year.”

“That’s huge,” said Miller. When agents serve in an understaffed force, “you can go into a zombie mode very quickly. Ask me how I know.”

Miller said all future Secret Service agents must have “an outstanding commitment to the mission, there are no side agendas. It’s all about being lean, mean, and ready to go. And we’ve kind of lost sight of that in the Secret Service,” due in part to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates. “That may work in corporate America to have certain classes of people there. The problem is, you don’t want just anybody around the president or the protectees of the United States Secret Service. You want the strongest, fastest, smartest.”

“You want the leaders of the free world protected by the best people available,” Miller told Perkins. Federal “law enforcement agencies … can’t hire enough qualified people between DEI and defund the police,” said Miller. “They’re not sure if they can take action anymore. … We need warriors ready to fight some of those people coming across the border.”

Some celebrated the resignation of Cheatle, who has a close relationship with the Biden family after serving on their personal security detail.

“Now [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Alejandro Mayorkas should resign,” declared Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), speaking of the only member of the Biden Cabinet to be impeached by the House.

But others said, in addition to fixing the problems that led to the near-assassination of the president, Congress needs structural reforms to assure they get answers.

“The big menu item is cut their funding each and every time they refuse to answer a question,” stated Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Unfortunately, he said, Congressional Republicans “are too weak to withhold funding for even one toner cartridge,” so “the agencies laugh in our faces and yours.” Roy agreed. 

Some Democrats had threatened to strip former President Trump of all Secret Service protection. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, introduced the “Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act” (HR 8081), cosponsored by eight additional left-wing Democrats.

The Biden-Harris administration only granted Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the only presidential candidate to have had two family members assassinated — Secret Service protection after the sniper shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Despite the half-finished nature of the Secret Service’s renewal, some Republicans were grateful Cheatle quit, 10 days after the shooting claimed one life and permanently disfigured the former president. “It’s about time,” Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) told Perkins on Tuesday evening. “Just over a week ago President Trump almost lost his life.”

House Republicans will resume searching for answers on Wednesday, as FBI Director Christopher Wray appears before the House Judiciary Committee.