Secret Service head Kimberly Cheatle resigns after shocking failures led to Trump assassination attempt
Embattled Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle has announced she will resign from her post less than two weeks after the agency’s calamitous failure at Donald Trump’s July 13 campaign rally led to him being wounded by an assassin’s bullet.
Cheatle, a 28-year veteran of the agency, faced mounting pressure to step down in recent days but insisted all along she would remain on the job. She announced her resignation in a letter to agency staffers on Tuesday morning.
“I have, and will always put the needs of this agency first. In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director,” Cheatle wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Post.
As news of Cheatle’s resignation was breaking, Trump posted on Truth social: “The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy. IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!”
A source close to the Trump campaign told The Post that her exit was “a week overdue.”
Cheatle’s No. 2, Deputy Director Ronald Rowe, will replace her as acting director, said their boss Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Following the rally shooting — which left the former president nicked in the ear, two supporters badly wounded and a volunteer firefighter dead — Cheatle made a series of missteps that did little to reassure lawmakers or the American public that she was fit to remain in the role.
Among her baffling remarks was an admission to ABC News that the reason Secret Service agents weren’t posted on the roof from which Thomas Matthew Crooks fired on the rally crowd was because it was too “sloped,” creating an unacceptable “safety factor” for the agents.
The agency’s failure to adequately secure the roof gave the 20-year-old an unobstructed line of sight to the GOP standard bearer, leading to the first assassination attempt against a sitting or former US president since 1981.
Crooks fired several shots from about 130 yards away before being killed by Secret Service counter-snipers.
At a House Oversight Committee meeting yesterday, Cheatle admitted the agency’s rally response was a “failure” but still gave her agents an “A” grade for the job they did that day.
This glowing assessment was in spite of a demonstrable series of catastrophic blunders, including the revelation that the Secret Service was aware of Crooks’ presence at the rally more than an hour before Trump addressed the crowd but still let him take the stage.
Crooks was also allowed to enter the rally despite being stopped at the entrance with a rangefinder — a type of eyepiece often used by hunters or golfers to determine far-off distances on the fly.
Minutes before the news broke, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had said he would not support impeaching Cheatle, though Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) had pushed for it a day before.
Everything we know about the Trump assassination attempt
- 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the shooter who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
- Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents.
- The gunman grazed Trump’s ear, killed a 50-year-old retired fire chief, and injured two other rally-goers.
- Investigators detailed Crooks’ search history to lawmakers, revealing that he looked for the dates of Trump’s appearances and the Democratic National Convention.
- Crooks’ search history also revealed a broad interest in high-profile people and celebrities, regardless of their political affiliation, FBI officials reportedly said.
- Trump exclusively recounted surviving the “surreal” assassination attempt with The Post at the rally, remarking, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
- High-profile politicians, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, addressed the nation about the shooting, calling it “a heinous, horrible and cowardly act.”
“Impeachment, as we know, is reserved for treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors,” he said. “Maladministration and utter incompetence, unfortunately, are not impeachable offenses — but there are other ways to achieve the desired end.”
Notified of her resignation mid-briefing, he joked that Cheatle “must have been watching our press conference,” calling it the “right thing.”
“Look, our reaction, the immediate reaction to her resignation is that it is overdue. She should have done this, at least a week ago,” he said.
Committee chair James Comer called Cheatle’s resignation “a step toward accountability,” but said “we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward.”
Prior to the shooting, Cheatle’s less than two-year tenure at the helm of the agency was marked by criticism that she was too focused on instituting woke diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives — such as her pledge to make the agency 30% women by 2030.
