President Joe Biden’s Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle dodged questions about the rooftop from which shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks shot former President Donald Trump. She also failed to answer how many agents were present at Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Obviously, there were many security failures on the day of the attempted assassination, and leading up to that day,” Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said Monday at the House Oversight Committee at a hearing, titled, Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump.
“Let’s start with the building that the shooter used to shoot President Trump from. At any point Saturday did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof?” Rep. Comer asked.
Cheatle responded by dodging the question, saying that the attempted assassination was only nine days ago.
“We are just nine days out from this incident, and there’s still an ongoing investigation,” she said. “And so, I want to make sure that any information that we are providing to you is factual.”
Rep. Comer pushed back, asking, “Can you answer why the Secret Service didn’t place a single agent on the roof?”
“We are still looking into the advance process and the decisions that were made,” Biden’s Secret Service director answered, which elicited audible sounds of frustration from others present at the hearing.
The Congressman then asked, “How many Secret Service agents were assigned to President Trump on the day of the rally?” to which Cheatle responded by saying she wasn’t going to “get into the specifics.”
“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,” Cheatle said.
Rep. Comer then commented on reports noting that “several of the agents assigned to the rally on July 13 were temporary agents — agents not normally assigned to President Trump,” asking Cheatle, “Is that accurate?”
Again, Cheatle dodged the question, failing to provide a specific number, answering, “What I can tell you is that the agents that were assigned to former President Trump are Secret Service agents that provide close protection to him, and that was what was actual on that day.”
“How many temporary agents were there that day?” Rep. Comer asked.
Biden’s Secret Service director replied by again, failing to answer the question.
“Quite frequently, sir, during campaign events, the Secret Service utilizes agents from HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] or the Department of Homeland Security to supplement our plan,” she said.
“You don’t know how many? You can’t answer?” the Congressman asked, to which Cheatle replied by failing to respond.
The Secret Service director was subpoenaed following her failure to prevent a sniper from shooting at President Trump on July 13.
Cheatle, who was appointed by Biden in August 2022 and reports to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas — who has been impeached — is facing calls for her resignation, but said last week that she has no intentions to step down.
Notably, it was recently reported that top officials within the Secret Service have denied requests to increase the security for President Trump over the past two years.
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