Kimberly Cheatle, Director of the U.S. Secret Service, Tuesday’s Interview The department said it was “solely responsible” for the planning and execution of security at the Pennsylvania rally where former President Trump was shot over the weekend.
“At that particular location, we have shared areas of responsibility, but the Secret Service is entirely responsible for the design, implementation and execution of the site,” Cheatle told CNN’s Whitney Wilde on Tuesday night.
Her comments come amid heightened scrutiny of federal agencies and their leadership after a gunman’s bullet grazed President Trump’s ear at a campaign event on Saturday, sparking a bloody massacre that marked one of the biggest security blunders by a federal agency since the shooting of former President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Questions have grown in recent days about how a 20-year-old gunman was able to climb onto a nearby rooftop and have a clear view of the former president at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Cheatle told Wilde that no assets were misappropriated from Trump’s rally that day.
In an interview with ABC News earlier that day, the director of the Secret Service said that security at the building where the suspect opened fire on the former president was the responsibility of local police.
“The point I was trying to make is, we just separated areas of responsibility and they assisted in those areas of responsibility,” Cheatle said, clarifying earlier comments about local police, adding that the Secret Service “cannot do its job without them.”
Mr Cheatle added that “safety factors” had to be taken into account when thinking about how to secure the building, and because the building had a sloped roof “the decision was made to secure the building from the inside”.
“What happened was a terrible incident and should never have happened,” she said, “and we will of course take the lessons learned from this incident and adapt accordingly.”
The director said he had spoken to “several staff members” who worked at the rally and would be speaking with the rest.
“Obviously, these are difficult conversations. Nobody who works in the Secret Service wants to have a day like this,” Cheatle said. “We did a great job. The people who protected and evacuated the president that day, the counter-sniper guys, did a great job. I’m very proud of how they conducted themselves.”
Cheatle has faced calls for him to resign in recent days but he has vowed to stay in his role.
