Not preventing an assassination attempt on former President Trump was the “most significant operational failure” of the U.S. Secret Service in decades, agency Director Kimberly Cheatle told a congressional committee during a hearing on the shooting Monday.
Cheatle also admitted that local authorities observed and photographed the shooter on a rooftop with a clear view of the stage 18 minutes before Trump started speaking.
At a campaign event in Pennsylvania on July 13, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, fired eight shots at Trump from a rooftop, injuring Trump’s ear and wounding three spectators, one of them fatally. Within 10 seconds of the first shot, he was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
But questions from members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability about how a man with a rifle was able to get within firing range of the former president — on a rooftop uncovered by the Secret Service, no less — went mostly unanswered.
“I am here today because I want to answer questions,” Cheatle said before being cut off by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “I don’t think you’ve answered one question from the chairman, the ranking member, or me,” Jordan said.
The director repeatedly provided vague or nonresponsive answers when pressed for specifics on the number and types of agents assigned to protect Trump at the rally and how the agency has handled earlier requests for additional security staff from the campaign.
“This is gross incompetence,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said, calling for Cheatle’s resignation and saying he’d get more answers from his kids if they were in trouble. McDonald said he withheld calling for her resignation until he heard her testimony.
Though law enforcement had reported a suspicious person to the Secret Service at the rally two to five times before the shooting, Cheatle declined to provide a specific timeline for when Crooks was first spotted. She said Trump would not have been allowed to take the stage if the Secret Service had known of a specific threat.
“We take what local law enforcement relays to us seriously,” Cheatle said. “We’re looking into whether or not there was a communication breakdown.”
In response to a question from Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-Kan.), Cheatle confirmed that a Beaver County Emergency Services unit saw Crooks on the roof and photographed him well before Trump took the stage. Knowing that Crooks had entered the grounds previously with a rangefinder, she said, his presence on the rooftop “could be termed as suspicious.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) asked why the Secret Service perimeter for the event was shorter than the range of an AR-15, one of the most popular weapons in the United States. Cheatle replied that there was no standard perimeter — the distance varied at different events.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) asked what led law enforcement to identify Crooks as a person of interest.
“We are nine days out, and there are [a] multitude of interviews that are still taking place,” Cheatle said, referring to an ongoing FBI investigation, an internal investigation within the Secret Service and an inspector general’s probe.
“Did they confront him? Did they go up to him? Did they talk to him?” Lynch asked.
“I do not have those details,” Cheatle said.
In her opening remarks, Cheatle explained the Secret Service constructed a security plan at the Butler Farm grounds with three concentric rings of protection — the inner, middle and outer perimeter, the last of which was protected by the agency and local law enforcement.
Cheatle was asked about her response to an ABC interview where she explained that no agents were placed on the roof where Crooks was positioned because it was sloped.
“I should have been more clear in my answer,” Cheatle said. “What I can tell you is that there was a plan in place to provide overwatch, and we are still looking into responsibilities and who was going to provide overwatch, but the Secret Service in general, not speaking specifically to this incident, when we are providing overwatch, whether that be through counter-snipers or other technology, prefer to have sterile rooftops.”
