Kimberly Cheatle, head of the US Secret Service, finally resigned on Tuesday, 10 days after the attack on Donald Trump, which she herself defined as “the agency’s biggest failure in decades”, and just one day after her appearance on Capitol Hill and hearing from lawmakers from both parties the demand for her resignation.
“The solemn mission of the Secret Service is to protect our nation’s leaders. And on July 13, we failed,” she added, before assuming “full responsibility” for what happened that day. She also said 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, holds a political office and has authority over 8,000 agents.
Cheatle heard calls from both sides of the aisle for her to resign. One of the harshest was from California Congressman Ro Khana, who asked her if she thought her Secret Service failure was comparable to the one surrounding the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in Washington in 1981. Without hesitation, she said yes. To which Khana replied: “Do you know what the person who was in charge of that position did? I’ll tell you: He resigned.”
Ohio Republican Mike Turner was even harsher with her. “Since Donald Trump is alive, and thank God he is, you are the very picture of incompetence,” Turner told Cheatle, who demanded that President Biden fire her if she did not agree to resign. “If Donald Trump had been assassinated, he would be guilty now.” Another Republican, Nancy Mace, went straight to disqualifications when she told her that she was “full of shit,” while Lauren Boebert forced a confession out of her: yes, she called Trump after the attack, and yes, she apologized to him.
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