Former members of a U.S. marshals task force have joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers in calling for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation after she made “deplorable” comments during a House Oversight Committee hearing about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania this month.
“I find it disappointing that she didn’t visit the scene of the loss of life during her nine days as warden,” Terry Michaels, a former special agent with the U.S. Marshals Service and private security expert at Executive Security Concepts, told Fox News Digital.
Michaels harshly criticized Cheatle during Monday’s hearing after the department’s director revealed that Cheatle had not read a report detailing whether advance guards at rally sites had adequate resources.
“Maybe it’s not her job, but it’s pretty negligent that she doesn’t know what’s going on,” he said.
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Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle walked out of a House Oversight Committee hearing on Monday after testifying about the assassination attempt on former President Trump. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
Crooks had previously scouted the Butler Farm Show grounds and successfully climbed onto a nearby roof, showing “how easy it is,” Mikels said.
“In my opinion, all they’ve done is show potential people wanting to do harm how easy it is to do so,” he said. “Anyone could have gotten on that roof.”
Michels said such national security failures “open the door” to people wanting their “five minutes of fame.”
“It opens the door for a lot of potential people looking for their five minutes of fame.”
“This case opens the door for a lot of potential people who want to use their five minutes of fame to do something bad, because they’ll see how poorly trained and prepared this was,” he said.
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Michels said Cheatle was responsible for failing to lead an agency whose purpose is to protect the nation’s leaders.
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“I don’t think there’s a victory for her,” he said. “Her biggest victory today is that she apologized to President Trump, to the family of the slain fire chief and to the two victims, and she took responsibility.”
“There is no justification for this level of total negligence.”
“As she said, this is totally deplorable and there can be no such level of total negligence,” Mikel said. “She needs to be held accountable.”
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has vowed to cooperate with any investigations into the agency following the assassination attempt on former President Trump. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Mikels said Cheatle appeared unable to answer “basic questions.”
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“We can’t wait 90 days or six months to get everybody ready. We have a presidential election and the Democratic National Convention coming up and people need to be ready starting yesterday.”
The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
