Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., asked Cheatle Monday “on Saturday, July 13th... local police had identified and even photographed a man who was acting suspiciously and this man who turned out to be the gunman had been flagged as a potential threat. Is that accurate? “
"What I can say is that the individual was identified as suspicious,” Cheatle responded.
"So he was known to be suspicious before former President Trump took the stage?” Raskin then asked.
“That is the information I have received,” Cheatle said.
“If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out onto stage. That is what we do, and that is who we are. We are charged with protecting, all of our protectees,” Cheatle continued.
“There are a number of times at protective events where suspicious people are identified, and those individuals have to be investigated and determined what is it that identifies that person as suspicious?” she also said.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, in response to comments from Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., about the “considerable delay” in removing former President Trump from the podium during the rally shooting in Pennsylvania, told the House Oversight Committee that “when the agents identified that the shooting was taking place, in under three seconds, they threw themselves on top of the president.”
“I understand that there was heroism there. No question about it, no question about it,” Lynch cut her off. “But protocol would indicate and these are... the opinions of various former Secret Service agents, people who have done this work in the past, that over a minute of exposure on that podium with, with a shooter with a high-capacity weapon who had already wounded the president and could have got off -- we don’t know how many more rounds -- and yet the president remained exposed even though he was joined in that exposure by the Secret Service in their heroic acts. I don’t know if there is a good explanation for that.”
"Our personnel created a body bunker on top of the president, shielding him," Cheatle then said.
"This was an AR-15 style weapon that would have made pretty quick work if he was determined and able to do so,” Lynch responded, referring to the capabilities of shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle said she could not confirm whether agents confronted Thomas Matthew Crooks before his attempt on former President Trump's life.
Cheatle made the statement under questioning from Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., at hearing with the House Oversight Committee.
"Did anybody anybody confront [Crooks] on that? Anybody ask him questions? What are you doing with the rangefinder? Anybody confront them on his presence where he was in proximity to the president?" Lynch asked.
"So again, to my knowledge, I believe that that was the process that was taking place, was to locate the individual," Cheatle responded.
"Did they confront him? Did they go up to him? Did they talk to him?" Lynch pressed.
"I do not have those details at this time," Cheatle said.
Cheatle is fighting off calls for her to resign from GOP lawmakers.
{{#rendered}}Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Monday that "for the event in Butler, there were no requests that were denied" from former President Trump's team.
"They asked for additional help in some form or another. You told them no. How many times did you tell them no? And what'd you tell them no to?" Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked Cheatle, referencing comments made by Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi.
“What I can tell you is that in generic terms, when people when details make a request, there are times that there are alternate ways to cover off on that threat or that report,” Cheatle responded.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., used his opening statement at the hearing to push for a weapons ban in the wake of the Trump rally shooting.
“What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a double failure. The failure by the Secret Service to properly protect former President Trump, and the failure of Congress to properly protect our people from criminal gun violence. We must therefore also ask hard questions about whether our laws are making it too easy for potential assassins to obtain firearms, generally in the AR-15 specifically,” he said.
“Mr. Comperatore,” Raskin said, referencing the volunteer firefighter who died in the shooting, “former president Trump and the other rally attendees wounded in Butler are now members of a club no one wants to belong to -- the thousands of people who have fallen victim to mass shootings,” Raskin continued.
“Last year, we had 655 mass shootings in America, defined as four or more people being shot or killed in a single event, not including the shooter. 712 people died and nearly 2,700 people were wounded in these attacks in 2023. Mass shootings are commonplace,” he also said. “They happen at political rallies and constituent meetings in our elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, in churches, synagogues and mosques and movie theaters and parades and nightclubs and grocery stores, in concerts and on street corners.”
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle says her agency is "still looking into the advanced process and the decision made" as to why an agent wasn't positioned on top of the roof that Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks used to fire at former President Trump.
"The building was outside of the perimeter on the day of the visit. But again, that is one of the things that during the investigation, we want to take a look at and determine whether or not other decisions should have been made," she said
She added that "I'm not going to get into the specifics of the numbers of personnel that we had there, but we feel that there was a sufficient number of agents assigned" to the event.
{{#rendered}}Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has told the House Oversight Committee that "on July 13th, we failed" when it came to her agency's handling of the Trump rally shooting.
"As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency," she continued.
"We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again," Cheatle also said. "Our agents, officers and support personnel understand that every day we are expected to sacrifice our lives to execute a no fail mission."
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has told Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle that she should resign over her agency's handling of the Trump rally shooting.
"Today's witness, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, is here under subpoena to answer questions about how the agency failed president Trump and the victims who attended the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania," the chairman of the House Oversight Committee said in his opening statement of a hearing about the Secret Service's response to the incident.
"It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign. However, in complete defiance, Director Cheadle has maintained she will not tender her resignation," Comer continued. "Therefore, she will answer questions today from members of this committee seeking to provide clarity to the American people about how these events were allowed to transpire."
Comer called the July 13 assassination attempt "one of the darkest days in American political history."
House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has told Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle that she will face hard questions today.
"Our job in Congress is not simply to marvel at miracles or count on good luck, but to act as public policy legislators to do whatever we can to prevent future political violence, attempted assassinations, and mass shootings,” Raskin said in his opening statement of a House hearing on the Secret Service response to the Trump rally shooting.
“The chairman and I are thus determined to get to the bottom of this stunning security failures that enabled this 20-year-old lone gunman who borrowed his father's AR-15 to perpetrate a mass shooting and assassination attempt at an event protected by the Secret Service, as well as state and local police,” he continued. “We'll ask hard questions of Director Cheadle today in order to identify and understand the shocking security failures that occurred and to help transform the operations of the Secret Service to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
{{#rendered}}House Speaker Mike Johnson has confirmed to Fox News on Monday that he has met with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle just prior to the start of the ongoing House Oversight Committee hearing.
On the way out of the meeting, which happened in a back room of the Rayburn House Office Building, Johnson -- when asked by Fox News if Cheatle is going to resign -- said it "doesn't sound like it."
Numerous lawmakers, including Johnson, have asked for Cheatle to step down from her position in the wake of the Trump rally shooting on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Fox News' Kelly Phares contributed to this report.
The House Oversight Committee hearing on the attempted assassination against former President Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 is now underway.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who is facing calls from lawmakers to resign, is moments away from testifying.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has arrived on Capitol Hill Monday ahead of her House Oversight Committee hearing on the Trump rally shooting, which is now just minutes away.
The hearing, titled "Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump," is set to unfold starting at 10 a.m.
{{#rendered}}A political scientist and expert on political assassinations pointed out major similarities between the attempted killing of former President Trump and the infamous presidential assassinations of the 20th century, focusing in particular on the fact that major security failures led to each of the traumatic incidents.
Dr. Larry Sabato, the author of "The Kennedy Half Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy," told Fox News Digital this week that just like in the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy – as well as the President Reagan assassination attempt – a troubled young man was able to game "serious" security vulnerabilities and get a clear shot at a U.S. leader.
"By my count, Trump had perhaps triple the Secret Service personnel that JFK had," the professor said, hinting at the scale of the security failures that almost led to Trump’s death last weekend.
A 20-year-old suspected gunman named Thomas Crooks fired an AR-15-style rifle at the former president during his 2024 campaign rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday, hitting Trump in the right ear and narrowly missing his head. Two others were seriously wounded, and Trump supporter Corey Comperatore was killed while protecting his family.
The House is expected to vote on legislation led by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., to establish a bipartisan commission that will investigate the Trump rally shooting.
The 11-member committee would "investigate and fully examine all actions by any agency, Department, officer, or employee of the federal government, as well as State and local law enforcement or any other State or local government or private entities or individuals, related to the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania," according to a draft resolution.
It will then "issue a final report of its findings to the House not later than December 13, 2024, including any recommendations for legislative reforms necessary to prevent future security lapses," the resolution adds.
Fox News' Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told ‘Fox & Friends’ on Monday morning that there were “clearly some lapses” with the way the Secret Service handled Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
“I have Secret Service protection right now. And the Secret Service have been doing an amazing job for me. I am very, very happy with the level of protection they are giving me and the level of concern and their professionalism,” Kennedy said.
But he added that “it seemed to me that there were clearly some lapses” in the way the Secret Service operated at the Trump campaign event where the assassination attempt was made.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is set to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee on the matter this morning.
{{#rendered}}Ron Layton, a former Secret Service official who handled presidential protection details, tells The Wall Street Journal that Director Kimberly Cheatle’s upcoming testimony on the Trump rally shooting will be a “seminal moment in the recent history of the agency.”
Layton said to the newspaper that the Secret Service’s “aura of impenetrability” has been eroded in the wake of the Trump rally shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, and now Cheatle will have to assure Americans that her agency has made fixes to safeguard Trump and other public officials.
“This is a seminal moment in the recent history of the agency to explain what happened and what the failures were,” Layton told The Wall Street Journal.
The hearing, titled "Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump," is set to unfold on Capitol Hill beginning at 10 a.m. ET.
A Republican member of the House Oversight Committee, who is expected to grill U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Monday, said the overarching Department of Homeland Security will get a "rude awakening" if they continue to "stonewall" in regard to failures in the lead-up to the attempt on former President Trump's life.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital over the weekend that the bureaucracy cannot be allowed to shirk their duty to explain themselves to the American people when the hearing commences.
"I am looking forward to hearing from Director Cheatle this Monday and getting answers for the American people on the Secret Service's failure to take action that would have prevented the attempt on President Trump's life from happening," Luna said.
"I also would like to get answers on why Mayorkas' DHS tried to pull blatant bureaucratic stonewalling on us. They are not getting away with it, and we expect their full transparency."
BETHEL PARK, Pa. – An expert in extremism and terrorism said that Thomas Matthew Crooks' assassination attempt on former President Trump was likely not politically motivated – instead, the 20-year-old was likely "acting out a fantasy," and seeking a target that would bring him "attention and fame."
Jytte Klausen, a political science professor at Brandeis University, has studied terrorist networks and violent extremism for two decades, putting together a methodology for forensic biographies of perpetrators and radicalization trajectories.
She is currently writing a book called "How to Become a Terrorist" that dives into incels, homegrown Islamists, neo-Nazis and other groups.
"He wanted to become somebody – he wanted to make a mark," Klausen posited about Crooks, who unleashed the attack on Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. "He appears not to have been particularly politically motivated, I think, based on what we know about his search history… there's no sense he wanted to effect the election."
"He was basically looking for a target that would bring him attention and fame – that's why I say that he was acting out a fantasy of himself as being a big man, showing the world what he can do and getting attention," she continued.
{{#rendered}}
BETHEL PARK, Pa. – A pair of plainclothes investigators, who appeared to be federal agents, visited the Pennsylvania home of former President Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks on Sunday – more than one week after the 20-year-old opened fire at a campaign rally.
The men, one carrying a large bag, were greeted at the door by a man who invited them in around 2 p.m.
They remained inside the modest Milford Drive house in the quiet Bethel Park suburb for 85 minutes before returning to their black SUV and driving off.
Later the same afternoon, a pair of men in black suits knocked on a neighbor's door several times and waited. No one answered. They walked to the side of the house and emerged a few minutes later.
The slain shooter's father has been holed up inside the brick home since his troubled son's failed assassination attempt that left Trump with a bloodied ear, firefighter Corey Comperatore dead and two others seriously wounded.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., will call on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign Monday in his opening statement at a hearing about the Trump rally assassination attempt.
“While we give overwhelming thanks to the individual Secret Service agents who did their jobs under immense pressure, this tragedy was preventable. The Secret Service has a zero fail mission, but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally,” Comer will say. “The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a significant budget, but it has now become the face of incompetence.
“It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign. However -- in complete defiance -- Director Cheatle has maintained she will not tender her resignation. Therefore, she will answer questions today from Members of this Committee seeking to provide clarity to the American people about how these events were allowed to transpire,” Comer will add.
“The safety of Secret Service protectees is not based on their political affiliation. And the bottom line is that under Director Cheatle’s leadership, we question whether anyone is safe,” Comer also will say.
Fox News' Kelly Phares contributed to this report.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is set to tell House lawmakers Monday that her agency “failed” when it came to security at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, where an assassination attempt unfolded.
"The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed," Cheatle is expected to say, according to excerpts of her remarks released by the Department of Homeland Security. "As the Director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse. As an agency, we are fully cooperating with the FBI’s investigation, the oversight you have initiated here, and conducting our own internal mission assurance review at my direction.”
“We must learn what happened and I will move heaven and earth to ensure an incident like July 13 does not happen again,” Cheatle is also expected to say. “Thinking about what we should have done differently is never far from my thoughts.”
{{#rendered}}
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc, released his official 13-page preliminary findings of his office's investigation into the assassination attempt of former President Trump.
Trump survived the assassination attempt on July 13 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where alleged gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire, killing one spectator and injuring several others, including Trump, who suffered injuries to his ear.
Shortly following the incident, Johnson's office began contacting federal, state and local government entities, as well as private companies, to solicit information about the security failures at the rally, the senator's office said. The preliminary findings are based on the initial information Johnson's office obtained after the shooting.
The preliminary findings determined that the Secret Service did not attend a security briefing given to local SWAT and sniper teams on the morning of July 13, that local law enforcement said communications were siloed and they were not in frequent radio contact directly with the Secret Service, that local law enforcement notified command about Crooks before the shooting and received confirmation that the Secret Service was aware of the notification and that the Secret Service was seen on the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building with local law enforcement following the shooting.
The investigation also found that photos of the shooter were sent to the ATF for facial recognition and that local law enforcement said the Secret Service was initially not planning on sending snipers to the rally.
The House Committee On Oversight and Accountability has scheduled a hearing for Monday with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who is facing criticism and calls to resign from lawmakers over her agency's handling of the Trump rally shooting last weekend in Pennsylvania.
The hearing, titled "Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump," is set to unfold on Capitol Hill beginning at 10 a.m. ET Monday.
Cheatle is refusing to resign, but House Speaker Mike Johnston told FOX Business on Thursday that he is prepared to call on President Biden to fire her.
“Continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident and U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has no intentions to step down. She deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement last Wednesday.
Cheatle was confronted by senators who were demanding answers when she showed up at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
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