Secret Service director faces impeachment push as FBI investigates Trump rally shooter
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., says she has filed a motion to impeach Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle as the FBI continues to investigate Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Former Secret Service agent Charles Marino told 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday that there were “too many non-answers" from Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle during her House Oversight Committee hearing on the agency’s response to the Trump rally shooting.
“Absolutely there were questions she could have answered. Look, there were just flat-out too many non-answers,” Marino said. “No matter who the director was yesterday walking into the Capitol, we knew this was going to be a day of reckoning.”
“That aside, it was how this Director Kim Cheatle decided she was going to go about answering all of these questions and I think things about timelines, who had direct oversight of the plan to sign off on this operational plan – I think that’s all in play,” Marino continued. “I think when you come in as a veteran with almost 30 years experience as a line agent, Congress is expecting you to have some experience and personal opinions to be able to share about the matter.”
Former President Trump and his 2024 running mate JD Vance sat down for their first joint interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters on Monday following the assassination attempt on the GOP nominee’s life at a rally in Butler, Pa., last week.
Trump told "Jesse Watters Primetime" embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle came to see him in the days following the assassination attempt.
"It went very nicely. She was very nice, I thought. But, you know, somebody should have made sure there was nobody on that roof," he said.
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired several shots at the former president from the rooftop of a building roughly 130 yards away.
Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, wrote on X Tuesday that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's testimony yesterday in front of the House Oversight Committee testimony “was a disgrace and she should resign, immediately.”
“It turns out the sloped roof that Dir. Cheatle said was ‘too dangerous’ to station officers on was so safe it would be considered ADA compliant,” he added, posting a clip of him grilling Cheatle during the hearing.
Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona visited Butler, Pennsylvania, on Monday with a bipartisan group of lawmakers and raised several questions about the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
Crane, a former Navy SEAL sniper, filmed himself on the rooftop from which Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump with a rifle, wounding the Republican candidate's ear, killing firefighter Corey Comperatore and injuring two other bystanders at Trump's July 13 rally.
"Hi, guys. I'm up here on the building where the supposed sniper took the shot. It's not that steep at all," Crane said, poking a hole in U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's claim that a "sloped roof" precluded her agency from placing personnel on the building during the rally.
Crane said it was easy to get onto the roof, noting that 70-year-old Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., was able to climb up as lawmakers toured the location. Calling on his experience as a former Navy SEAL sniper, the Arizona Republican immediately identified a nearby water tower as a missed opportunity for the Secret Service to place countersnipers and other security miscues in the area.
"Had Secret Service or anybody had sniper teams up there, this guy wouldn't have made it five feet up this roof," Crane said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., announced Tuesday the creation of a bipartisan House Task Force to investigate the Trump assassination attempt.
“The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are shocking. In response to bipartisan demands for answers, we are announcing a House Task Force made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats to thoroughly investigate the matter,” said the two Congressional leaders said in a joint statement.
“The task force will be empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and make certain such failures never happen again,” they added.
The statement also said the task force will make recommendations for reform to relevant government agencies.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told 'Fox & Friends First' on Tuesday that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle “has to go” after she said during an interview last week that personnel were not positioned on top of the building where the Trump rally shooter opened fire because of a "sloped roof.”
Gimenez, who visited the site of the Trump assassination attempt on Monday, said “There is no slant to that roof. It’s maybe a 10-degree slope. The roof on my house is way, way steeper and I get on that all the time.
“I’m 70 years old, had no problem getting on the roof, no problem standing on the roof, no problem running around the roof so that was a total made up lie by the Secret Service director and that is why she has to go,” he told ‘Fox & Friends First.’
“That is just an excuse for their incompetence. And it was total incompetence,” Gimenez added. “Whoever is leading [Trump’s] detail, whoever made the planning for that detail, they need to go too because there are so many gaps.”
A former U.S. Marshals task force member joined the chorus of bipartisan lawmakers in demanding that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resign after her "deplorable" House Oversight Committee hearing on Monday about the attempted assassination of former President Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, this month.
"I think nine days out for her to not visit the scene as director where lives were lost is deplorable," Terry Mikels, a former U.S. Marshals Service task force officer and a personal protection specialist with Executive Security Concepts, told Fox News Digital.
Mikels skewered Cheatle after the agency's director revealed at Monday's hearing that she did not read a report detailing if the advance team for the rally site had enough resources.
"While that may not be her actual job, for her not to be apprised of what is going on is just so negligent," he said.
Crooks' opportunity to scope out the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds venue beforehand and then successfully climb on top of a nearby roof showed "how easy it is," Mikels said.
"What they've done, in my opinion, is they just showed any potential persons who want to do harm how easy it is," he said. "Anybody could have climbed on that roof."
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testified for hours on Capitol Hill Monday, facing a grilling from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the agency’s lapse in security that enabled the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
Cheatle testified before the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., after he subpoenaed her to appear.
Cheatle admitted under oath that the Secret Service "on July 13th, we failed."
Comer called on Cheatle to resign, along with other Republican lawmakers.
But Democrats called for her resignation as well, including Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who said, "If you have an assassination attempt on a president or a former president or a candidate, you need to resign."
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., at one point told Cheatle that her response that she had "no idea" how her opening statement for the hearing got leaked to media agencies is "bulls---."
Cheatle also testified Monday that she called former President Trump after the shooting to apologize.
Former President Trump is escorted off the stage during the shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. (AP/Gene J. Puskar)
The House Committee on Homeland Security is holding a hearing at 10 a.m. Tuesday on the response to the July 13 Trump assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The hearing on Capitol Hill, the committee says, will "examine the facts and circumstances surrounding the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump" and "will feature witness testimony from Colonel Christopher L. Paris, commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, and Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police."
“After over a week of investigations, DHS stonewalling, and Director Cheatle’s refusal to testify before our Committee, the American people and Congress have more questions than answers. I am deeply grateful for the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our nation’s leaders and our communities,” Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said in a statement. “In order to ensure they succeed in the future, we must find out how the numerous failures took place on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, and why.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Capitol Hill about the attempted assassination of former President Trump. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., announced that she has “filed a privileged motion to impeach Kim Cheatle, Director of the Secret Service.
“This will force a vote within the next 48 hours,” Mace wrote in a post on X after she grilled Cheatle at a House Oversight Committee hearing Monday focused on the Secret Service’s handling of the Trump rally shooting.
At one point during that hearing, Mace told Cheatle “You're full of s-- today.”
"You are being dishonest or lying. You're being dishonest here with this committee," Mace continued. "These are important questions that the American people want answers to. And you're just, you're just dodging and talking around it in generalities. And we had to subpoena you to be here. And you won't even answer the questions. We have asked you repeatedly to answer our questions. This isn't hard. These are not hard questions."
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