© Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesFormer United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle
Fox News reviewed the letter Cheatle sent to the U.S. Secret Service Tuesday morning, just a day after taking bipartisan heat during testimony before the House Oversight Committee Monday and over a week after a would-be assassin Thomas Crooks attempted to take the life of Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
"To the Men and Women of the U.S. Secret Service, The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders and financial infrastructure," Cheatle wrote in a letter to the agency. "On July 13th, we fell short on that mission."
Cheatle said that the "scrutiny" over the last week "has been intense and will continue to remain as our operational tempo increases."
"As your Director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse," she wrote.
Biden, who did not fire Cheatle in the 10 days since the shooting, said he is "grateful to Director Kim Cheatle for her decades of public service," and that he will appoint a new director soon.
"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 said. "We all know what happened that day can never happen again. As we move forward, I wish Kim all the best."
Cheatle said, though, that the "incident does not define us."
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Trump, during his rally, ever-so-slightly turned his head — narrowly missing the bullet shot by 20-year-old suspect Crooks' AR-15-style rifle by just a quarter of an inch. The bullet hit him, instead, in his upper right ear.
The bullet killed firefighter, father and husband Corey Comperatore as he protected his family from the shots, and severely injured two others.
Cheatle admitted under oath that the Secret Service "on July 13th, we failed."
"As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency," she said. "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 added: "Our agents, officers and support personnel understand that every day we are expected to sacrifice our lives to execute a no fail mission."
House Republicans, including House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, had been calling on Cheatle to resign, calling her and the agency under her watch "the face of incompetence."
"It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign," Comer said during the hearing. "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."
But Cheatle had defied those calls for days, maintaining she would not tender her resignation, and instead appeared before Congress to answer questions for the American people.
Cheatle's initial explanation of why there was such a significant security lapse that led to the near assassination of Trump included details about the roof Crooks was perched upon.
"That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there's a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof," Cheatle said last week. "And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside."
During the hearing, Cheatle said the Secret Service 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 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.
Trump's security detail reportedly asked for additional security from the Secret Service, repeatedly, but those requests were not met.
The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has opened an investigation into the Secret Service's handling of security for the Trump rally on July 13.
Reader Comments
I vote Cheadle gets the needle....ha ha
And as for putting some people on a sloped roof - these are not 8 year old children we are talking about.
She doesn’t have decades of public service, she worked corporate security before the SS position.