According to media reports, the head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, who came under criticism after the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, has resigned. Several US media outlets reported the resignation on Tuesday. The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting current and former presidents, initially did not comment when asked by the AFP news agency.
Cheatle admitted on Monday at a hearing before a committee in the US Congress that her agency “failed” on July 13, when an assassin shot Trump during a campaign event. She spoke of the “most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades.” As head of the agency, she takes “full responsibility for any security breach.”
Representatives of Democrats and Republicans had called on Cheatle to resign after the assassination attempt on Trump in the town of Butler. Trump barely survived the assassination attempt, having been hit by a bullet in his right ear. A man in the audience was killed, and two other participants in the rally were seriously injured. The suspected perpetrator, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper – 26 seconds after he fired the first shots at Trump.
Immediately after the assassination, questions were raised as to how Crooks had been able to position himself with his weapon on a roof just 150 meters away from Trump.
Cheatle was appointed head of the Secret Service by US President Joe Biden in 2022. She had previously worked for the agency for 27 years before becoming the interim head of security for the North American region for the beverage company PepsiCo in 2021.
