President Joe Biden’s Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said during Monday’s House Oversight Committee hearing that shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’ status went from “suspicious” — for which the Secret Service does not take action — to a “threat” just “seconds” before he started shooting at former President Donald Trump.
After being asked by Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC) when Crooks’ status went from “suspicious” to “threat” — noting that the two classifications are “treated very differently” — Cheatle replied, “I believe that it was seconds before the gunfire started.”
“Seconds? My gosh, we actually have a few questions that we got answered today,” Fry reacted, referring to the multitude of questions asked earlier in the hearing, which Cheatle failed to answer.
The congressman went on to say that “the problem with Washington, DC,” is that it is “the only town in America where you can be so bad at your job that you actually get a promotion or don’t get fired.”
Fry continued:
You have not been able to answer the number of agents [present at Trump’s July 13 rally], whether or not requests were denied on additional security, whether or not law enforcement were able to engage before the shooting with the assassin, how he got on the roof, how the rifle got on the roof.
You can’t tell us how many shots he fired, whether the casings were recovered. You can’t tell us anything about his cellphone. You can’t tell us whether the rally was supposed to be postponed, given the intelligence that you were receiving. You can’t tell us whether the car had a bomb. You can’t even tell us his motive.
“And the American people are incredibly distrustful because it has taken nine days to even get a scintilla of evidence out of you,” the congressman added.
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Committee on Oversight and Accountability“Maybe, if I was CNN or ABC or NBC, I would’ve gotten much more thorough and accurate information, but we have not received that in a subpoenaed hearing,” Fry said.
The congressman was likely referring to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC)’s earlier remarks at the hearing, in which she pointed out that Cheatle’s opening statement was leaked to the press before it was sent to the House Oversight Committee.
“That is why the American people are frustrated, and I echo the bipartisan calls on this committee and all across this country that you should resign, or, maybe when the president wakes up from his nap, he can fire you,” Fry concluded.
As Breitbart News reported, the Secret Service chief was subpoenaed following her failure to prevent a sniper from shooting at Trump on July 13.
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C-SPANCheatle, whom Biden appointed in August 2022 and who reports to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas — who has been impeached — is facing calls for her resignation but has said that she has no intentions to step down.
Notably, it was recently reported that top officials within the Secret Service denied requests to increase the security for Trump over the past two years.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
