US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday, a day after she admitted the agency failed in its mission to prevent an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
Cheatle was facing bipartisan calls to step down after the former Republican president and current White House candidate was wounded by a 20-year-old gunman during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
“This is too late, they should have done this at least a week ago,” House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. “I’m glad to see they’ve heeded the calls from both Republicans and Democrats.”
Cheatle appeared before a congressional committee on Monday and said the attack on Trump, who suffered a minor injury to his right ear, reflected a failure by the Secret Service.
He called it “the Secret Service’s biggest operational failure in the last several decades.”
Both Republicans and Democrats called on Cheatle to resign. He drew ire from lawmakers in both parties by refusing to provide specific details about the attack, citing multiple active investigations.
The gunman opened fire on Trump with an AR-style assault rifle just minutes after he began a speech at a campaign event.
Sitting on the roof of a nearby building, he was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper less than 30 seconds after firing the first of eight bullets.
Investigators concluded that the young man, who lived in a town about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Butler, acted alone, and they were unable to identify any strong ideological or political leanings.
Two people at the rally were seriously injured, and Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter from Pennsylvania, was shot and killed.
Trump’s former physician said over the weekend that the Republican candidate had a two-centimetre (about an inch) bullet wound in his right ear.
“The bullet passed just a quarter-inch from entering his head and lodged above his right ear,” said former White House physician Ronny Jackson.
Cheatle served as a Secret Service agent for 27 years, then became the head of security for PepsiCo in North America in 2021.
President Joe Biden nominated her to head the agency in 2022.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
