US Secret Service Director, Cheatle, resigns after Trump assassination attempt

US Secret Service Director, Kimberly Cheatle has tendered her resignation amid scrutiny of security lapses related to the recent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.

The move comes as lawmakers and an internal government watchdog move forward with investigations into the agency’s handling of Trump’s protection and how a gunman came close to the killing the 2024 Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania this month.

In a statement, President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden are “grateful” for Cheatle’s decades of public service.

“As a leader, it takes honor, courage, and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service,” Biden.

Biden said a new Secret Service director will appointed soon. The post does not need Senate approval.

During her House Oversight appearance, Cheatle acknowledged that there were “significant” and “colossal” problems with the security at the rally, but still rebuffed demands for her resignation.

“I think I am the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time,” Cheatle said Monday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that the resignation is “overdue.”

“Now we have to pick up the pieces,” Johnson said. “We have to rebuild the American people’s faith and 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, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

In the initial wake of the shooting, Cheatle was emphatic that she would not step down. Cheatle was appointed by Biden to lead the Secret Service in 2022.

Earlier last week, Cheatle said that the agency was “solely responsible” for the design and implementation of security at the Pennsylvania rally site, where the now-deceased gunman fired shots at Trump from an unsecured rooftop just a few hundred feet from the rally stage.

A bullet hit Trump’s ear, and the incident left one rallygoer dead and others injured.

As more has become known about the circumstances around the attempted attack, the Secret Service has been questioned about how it carried its protection of Trump that day, including the failure to control access to the rooftop and how the agency handled information, passed along by local law enforcement before the shooting, that identified the would-be assassin as a person acting suspiciously around the rally grounds.

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