Several Republicans and at least one Democrat in Congress have called on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign following her admission that the Secret Service (USSS) failed in its mission to protect former President Donald Trump at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Cheatle has adamantly refused to resign. She reportedly met Trump at the Republican National Convention.
Trump delivered his assessment during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters in which he confirmed that the Secret Service did not prevent him from taking the stage on July 13 and should have because it had been warned of the shooter's sighting. "Nobody said there is a problem," he said.
Brand new interview with Trump and JD Vance.
Trump says Secret Service should have kept him off the stage until they had taken assassin Thomas Crooks into custody.pic.twitter.com/hayTUYkjn5 — Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 21, 2024
While agreeing she should step down, critics are also saying the Secret Service has been compromised since Jan. 6, 2021 with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) pipe bomb fiasco.
Former State Department cyber official Mike Benz in an interview posted on social media called for a congressional subcommittee to focus on all that happened between the Jan. 6 2021 pipe bomb and the assassination attempt on Trump:
It took about a year after Jan. 2021 to learn that Kamala Harris under Secret Service protection as the Vice President elect that day was actually at the DNC building at the time the pipe bomb was found which means Secret Service would have cased the area. .... And then Kamala Harris either lied or stonewalled Congress and evidently the Justice Department because the Justice Department lied in their indictments for the first full year of the prosecutions saying that Kamala Harris was in the Capitol building. But it turned out it was the Secret Service who was to supposed to protect her against the pipe bomb .... and then they wiped their phones.
A letter that was given to the House Select Committee on January 6 stated that the erasure took place shortly after Oversight Committee officials requested the agency’s electronic communications.The Department of Homeland Security — the Secret Service’s parent agency — is subject to oversight from the DHS Office of Inspector General, which had requested records of electronic communications from the Secret Service between Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, before being informed that they had been erased, The Intercept reported in July 2022.
On Saturday, one week after the attempt on Trump's life, the Secret Service finally reversed early denials and acknowledged that it had refused the Trump team's repeated requests to increase security at the former president's massive rallies.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Trump's campaign had asked for more agents and magnetometers at large public events he attended, as well as extra snipers for outdoor venues.
Each request denied by senior officials who claimed the Secret Service lacked the resources Trump was asking for, the report said.
After the assassination attempt, as reports began to circulate that the agency had refused the Trump campaign's requests, the Secret Service said the reports were not accurate.
There is "an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed,” the agency's chief spokesperson, Anthony Gugliemi, said in a social media post. “This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”
Investigative journalist Julie Kelly wrote in a social media post that Cheatle should be pressed to answer a number of questions when she appears before the Oversight Committee on Monday:
1) How far in advance did the FBI notify the USSS about the armed raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022?
2) Were you personally notified of the raid?
3) At any point, did USSS express concern to DOJ or FBI about the presence of 30 armed, plainclothes FBI agents rummaging through the personal effects of the former president, his wife, and teenage son?
4) Are you aware the FBI authorized the use of lethal force at MAL during the search?
5) What did your agents plan to do to protect the former president and/or his family had they arrived at MAL during the raid?
6) During the consensual search of Joe Biden's home for classified documents, are you aware whether or not the FBI agents were armed?
7) What steps have you taken to recover the deleted text messages belonging to several officials including yourself related to the events of January 6?
8) You were with the USSS and on duty on January 6. Did the J6 Select Committee ever interview you?
9) Speaking of January 6, how did the Secret Service detail of Kamala Harris miss detecting a pipe bomb planted outside the DNC that day?
10) Was Ms. Harris' life in danger while she was at the DNC? If so, has any agent been fired for missing the device and endangering the life of the incoming Vice President?
11) Did USSS conduct a sweep of the premises inside and outside the DNC prior to her arrival at around 11:40am on January 6?
12) Is the USSS participating in what the FBI claims is an "ongoing" investigation into the pipe bomb threat?
Theres an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed. This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo
— Anthony Guglielmi (@SecretSvcSpox) July 14, 2024
Free Press International
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