Congress urged the leader of the Secret Service to resign during a tense hearing on Monday about the failed assassination of President Trump.
Kimberly Cheatle rejected calls from both parties to step down, even as national anger simmers over her failure to keep President Trump safe at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13.
Many have questioned how the Secret Service failed to secure an obvious vantage point that the gunman used to shoot at Trump.
Cheatle refused to provide much clarity over hours of questioning from the House Oversight Committee. She admitted that she oversaw "the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades," but she made clear that she has no plans to resign.
"I think that I am the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time,” she said.
The hearing continued a frustrating pattern from the Secret Service and its director, who has acknowledged the massive security failures without taking accountability for them.
Cheatle admitted Monday that a suspicious person was spotted two to five times, but she said the gunman was only considered an active threat mere seconds before he pulled the trigger.
"An individual with a backpack is not a threat,” Cheatle said. “An individual with a rangefinder is not a threat.”
In an unusual display of bi-partisan outrage, Democrats joined Republicans in urging Cheatle to step aside.
“I don’t want to add to the director’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I will be joining the chairman in calling for the resignation,” House Oversight ranking member Jamie Raskin (Md.) said.
California Democrat Ro Khanna noted that the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan led to consequences for the Secret Service director at the time, who ended up stepping down.
“Do you really, genuinely, in your heart, believe that you being in this role is what’s right for America at this moment?” Khanna asked.
It is completely unacceptable for a federal bureaucrat to thumb her nose at oversight from one of the elected branches of government, especially on such a grave matter as this.
Sadly, many Americans have come to expect this arrogant behavior from America's out of control federal agencies.
Congress is going to have to take more forceful steps to get to the bottom of what happened and ensure this never happens again.
