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“The July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was the Secret Service’s most significant operational failure in decades.”
These are not my words. These are excerpts from former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s opening testimony at Monday’s hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
While one might assume that Ms. Cheatle had conducted research to learn every detail of the events of that day, her testimony suggests the exact opposite: She responded to basic questions from me and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle with incoherent, rambling and hollow answers.
Secret Service Director Cheetah resigns amid growing pressure following Trump assassination attempt
I am pleased that former Secretary Cheatle tendered her resignation on Tuesday. In fact, I would have preferred that she be fired. Accountability starts at the top. We must take a hard look at the failure that led to President Trump’s near assassination at the hands of a lone, untrained 20-year-old man.
Former Secretary Cheatle’s embarrassing statements in the aftermath of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, coupled with his inappropriate testimony before Congress, are a cause for concern for the nation.
For example, the day after the assassination attempt, Cheatle made an objectively outrageous comment when explaining why investigators or other law enforcement had not been stationed in the shooter’s building: “That building, in particular, has a sloped roof on the highest part of it. For safety reasons, you don’t want somebody standing on a sloped roof.”
During Monday’s hearing, I zeroed in on this inane excuse: I asked her if the Secret Service had a “sloping roof” policy, and she said it didn’t.
Secret Service Director Cheetah resigns amid growing pressure following Trump assassination attempt
In fact, we know that the slope of the sloping roof in question was so gentle that it was essentially ADA compliant even for a wheelchair.Cheatle’s statement is even more puzzling when you consider that the FBI counter-sniper was stationed on a nearby sloping roof with a much steeper slope.
This bizarre excuse for a sloping roof is just one of many deeply worrying elements of the biggest “Secret Service operational failure” in decades, but adherence to some of the most basic protective service principles could have easily prevented a gunman from getting so close to causing international catastrophe.
All of this begs the question: How was the security plan approved, and who, at what level, approved such a poor plan?
As a former military officer and after speaking with a variety of whistleblowers and sources, including former Secret Service and FBI personnel, I know that detailed mission planning, including reconnaissance, rehearsals, and advance coordination with outside parties, is critical to ensuring mission success.
Cheatle’s comments and testimony make it clear that the mission was doomed to failure from the planning stages.
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First, the Secret Service did not conduct a detailed vulnerability assessment — a crucial step that should have been completed automatically in an outdoor venue with a former president in attendance and ongoing threats from Iran. A vulnerability assessment would have immediately identified the shooter’s building, just 130 yards from President Trump’s podium, as a location that required staffing.
Second, there was a clear disconnect between the Secret Service and local police, who identified the shooter on the roof minutes before the shooting but failed to communicate this to Trump’s troops.
Basic coordination and rehearsal could have prevented this from happening — Secretary Cheatle knew about the threat in advance and acknowledged her authority to commit additional resources to protect President Trump — but she did not, and unfortunately the results were fatal.
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The apparent failure of basic security and planning principles is shocking, distressing and extremely troubling. This can only occur when there is an alarming level of incompetence at the highest levels of the institution.
“We need a culture change in the Secret Service and throughout the Department of Homeland Security. Director Cheatle’s resignation marks the first step in a long journey to ensuring the safety of the agency whose sole responsibility is to ensure the safety of all high-profile protected individuals: the United States Secret Service.”
To read more comments from Rep. Pat Fallon, click here
