Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle walked into a hearing room of lawmakers ready to tear into everything she said Monday morning. Some had even prepared to call for her resignation.
By the end of the heated nearly five-hour grilling, House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer and ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin agreed to jointly call for her resignation.
“Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure … we call on you to resign as Director as a first step to allowing new leadership to swiftly address this crisis and rebuild the trust of a truly concerned Congress and the American people,” Comer and Raskin wrote in a letter.
Cheatle’s testimony was the biggest thing happening in the House on Monday morning; House Speaker Mike Johnson even arrived early, chatting with lawmakers on the committee before they began their questioning.
With an even voice, Cheatle praised her agents during her opening remarks and accepted responsibility for the lapse in protection during Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, where an attempted assassination wounded the former president and killed a rallygoer.
“The assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on July 13 is the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades,” Cheatle said. “We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13 does not happen again.”
Still, nearly every member of the House Oversight Committee — on both sides of the aisle — challenged Cheatle on her ability to continue leading the Secret Service.
“You’re full of shit today,” Rep. Nancy Mace lobbed at Cheatle during her questioning, before accusing the director of deliberately dodging questions for political reasons. Mace made Cheatle an offer: “Take my five minutes to draft your resignation letter.”
Mace wasn’t the only one to make the suggestion.
“Would you agree this is the most serious security lapse since President Reagan was shot?” Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, asked Cheatle.
“Yes, sir, I would agree with that,” Cheatle, who has led the Secret Service since 2022, said of the assassination attempt on Trump.
Stuart Knight, who led the Secret Service during the Reagan assassination attempt, resigned shortly after that incident, Khanna went on to point out.
“He was a Republican appointee. And he took responsibility,” Khanna said. “I believe, Director Cheatle, that you should resign.”
The proceedings went off the rails almost immediately.
Rep. James Comer asked the first question: if anyone from the Secret Service had scouted out the roof the shooter ultimately positioned himself on.
Cheatle’s response that the answer to that question would come from an “ongoing investigation” infuriated lawmakers.
“It’s the first question,” Rep. Lauren Boebert could be heard saying from the dais.
“Why are you here?” others called out when Cheatle said she couldn’t answer how many agents were assigned to Trump that day.
“You answered more questions with an ABC reporter than you have with members of Congress,” Comer said halfway through the hearing — a sentiment Democratic Rep. Dan Golden repeated.
Lawmakers only grew more irate as the hearing continued, frustrated when Cheatle couldn’t speak to the number of bullets the shooter fired and that she had not visited the site of the shooting.
“So the shooter had been there two more times than you have,” Rep. Pat Fallon said, before yelling that he had recreated the incident on his own with a “94% success rate.”
Cheatle indicated that the investigation into the incident would take roughly two months — a response that didn’t satisfy Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“The idea that the report will be finalized in 60 days, let alone prior to any action taken, or decisions that will be made, is simply not acceptable,” the New York Democrat said. “We need to have answers to the public.”
Cheatle said that “to the best of our knowledge,” the Secret Service did not know the shooter had a weapon as Trump approached the stage, only that he was acting strangely and being reported to local police.
“If the detail were passed the information that there was a threat, the detail would never have let the former president out on the stage,” she said.
Cheatle also said that the Secret Service filled all of Trump’s security requests, despite reports that Trump’s previous requests for additional security over the past two years had been repeatedly denied due to staffing shortages.
Ultimately, her answers didn’t convince lawmakers in the room.
“In the middle of a presidential election, the Committee and the American people demand serious institutional accountability and transparency that you are not providing,” Comer and Raskin’s letter read.
Lawmakers also publicly confronted Cheatle at the Republican National Convention last week. Sens. John Barrasso and Marsha Blackburn followed the director around, shouting questions at her and calling for her resignation. A video, seemingly taken by staffers, was posted on social media.
“Resignation or full explanation to us right now,” Barrasso is seen saying to Cheatle in the video.
In addition to the House Oversight investigation, the Department of Homeland Security has also launched its own probe through its inspector general’s office. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also promised to allow an independent review of the incident from someone outside the agency and government.
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.