A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee are demanding Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle step down after she delivered more questions than answers during a hearing on the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., joined “Fox & Friends” to discuss why they are calling for Cheatle’s resignation after the embattled director refused to answer a vast majority of questions before Congress during her testimony on Monday.
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“Anybody that’s watched the Oversight Committee knows we don’t always agree on the Oversight Committee, but on this, it was basically unanimous,” Donalds told Lawrence Jones on Tuesday. “She needs to leave immediately. Should’ve happened yesterday, needs to happen today. The mission of the Secret Service, where they protect all former presidents and families and other key personnel and leadership.”
“This is not about just President Trump, although his life is what was put in jeopardy,” he continued. “It’s about President Obama, President Clinton, President Bush, and President Biden. This is a very serious matter. The members of Congress are not going to stop calling for her to go.”
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 22: United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a hearing at the Rayburn House Office Building on July 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. The beleaguered leader of the United States Secret Service has vowed cooperation with all investigations into the agency following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Cheatle, who testified under a subpoena Monday, refused to answer a vast majority of lawmakers’ questions pertaining to security failures leading up to the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, regularly citing the fact that the incident is still under criminal investigation.
Although she admitted under oath that the Secret Service “failed” its mission on July 13, she made it clear, despite bipartisan calls, that she would not be stepping down from her post.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed,” Cheatle said in her opening statement. “As director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency. We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again.”
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“She needs to resign,” Khanna said. “This is not a partisan issue. There was obviously a failure in protecting the former president in protecting a presidential candidate, and she simply doesn’t have the confidence of the nation. There are a lot of people who do not trust her, so she needs to step aside.”
“I really don’t understand why she would want to stay on at this point to be the director of the Secret Service,” he continued. “You need the confidence of all the American people. It’s not a political office. It’s an office where you’re protecting our leaders. And she simply does not have that confidence. And at a time where we’re so polarized, where people have lost confidence in government, she needs to do the right thing.”
Khanna asked Cheatle during the hearing if she would consider the assassination attempt “the most serious security lapse since President Reagan was shot in 1981.”
She said yes, and he then used that as a basis for arguing she should resign. She has refused to do so, so far.
“She was being very evasive, stonewalling,” Donalds said. “Like Ro said, not providing any confidence to any member on Capitol Hill that she’s prepared to do the necessary work to fix what went wrong that day and to make sure it doesn’t happen again. As far as I’m concerned, she should resign. She should be fired. I’m surprised she’s still the head of the Secret Service to this day.”
“There has to be real accountability. We can’t do the political thing, and everybody just says, ‘I’m going to be responsible. I’m going to own this. It’s on my watch. I’m deeply sorry.’ That’s not good enough. The Secret Service has a mission unique of almost any other federal agency. This is very serious. She needs to go,” he continued.