The head of the United States Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, is resigning due to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. This decision comes after days of mounting pressure and criticism for the security lapse during the event.
In an email to staff on Tuesday, Cheatle announced her plans to step down, as reported by The Associated Press. US lawmakers had been pressuring her to resign while questions arose about the security protocols at Trump’s rally on July 13 in Pennsylvania, where the former president was shot in the ear.
“I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” Cheatle stated in her email. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.”
President Joe Biden thanked Cheatle for her decades of public service and mentioned that he plans to appoint her replacement soon. “The independent review to get to the bottom of what happened on July 13 continues, and I look forward to assessing its conclusions.
We all know what happened that day can never happen again,” Biden said in a statement.
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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced later that Ronald L. Rowe, the Secret Service’s deputy director, would serve as acting director following Cheatle’s resignation.
During a US congressional committee hearing on Monday, Cheatle faced tough questions about the Secret Service’s security plan at the Trump rally.
The former president was shot by a gunman positioned on a rooftop with a clear view of the rally stage, increasing the pressure on the Secret Service to explain the security measures in place before the event.
“The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13 is the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades,” Cheatle told lawmakers during the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing.
“There clearly was a mistake, and we will make every effort to make sure that this never happens again.”
Biden has ordered an independent review of security protocols at the rally, where one attendee was killed, and two others were seriously injured. However, lawmakers had been pushing for immediate answers from Cheatle and other US law enforcement leaders, including Mayorkas from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Cheatle’s resignation was “overdue.” “Now we have to pick up the pieces; we have to rebuild the American people’s trust in the Secret Service as an agency.
It has an incredibly important responsibility in protecting presidents, former presidents, and other officials in the executive branch,” Johnson stated. “And we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna noted that Cheatle’s resignation comes at a critical moment, just months before a US election in November.
Trump is now expected to face off against the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, after Biden withdrew from the race on Sunday.
“The director of the Secret Service is an incredibly important function,” Hanna said. “It’s now up to the president to appoint a new director. Obviously, it will be a very critical appointment at a time when the country is going into a national election, at a time when there is immense political divide.”
