Ten takeaways from Secret Service Director Cheatle’s congressional testimony

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on Monday, July 22, nine days after a shooter defeated security at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The assignation attempt wounded former President Trump and two rally-goers, and killed another rally-goer.

The bi-partisan committee was unified in its condemnation of Director Cheatle’s oversight of the Secret Service and her lack of clarity and specificity in her testimony. Nearly every committee member called for Director Cheatle’s resignation.

The testimony lasted well over three hours. While much can be written about the hearing, the following ten points of information/acknowledgments provided by Director Cheatle during her testimony are important to note at this stage:

  1. The Secret Service failed in its “no fail” mission to protect former President Trump and prevent an assassination attempt.
  2. The Secret Service plan did not place the AGR building/roof within the inner security perimeter, and the plan to secure the building involved the use of “over watch” by sniper teams.
  3. That over watch ultimately failed to prevent the shooting from occurring due to a combination of concealment the AGR roof provided the shooter until the final seconds, and delayed or ineffective communication between local officers and Secret Service agents.
  4. The eventual shooter’s actions (carrying a range finder and backpack, looking at the roof, etc.) around the AGR building in the hour before the shooting did generate several suspicious person callouts on the radio by officers/agents. That should have resulted in an officer/agent team promptly locating the suspicious person to determine if they were a threat. That locate-and-interview never occurred and is a key focus of the ongoing investigation.
  5. The investigation has determined that the Secret Service was not able to determine the suspect was a threat until a matter of seconds before the shooting began. The exact timeline and reasons why the counter-sniper teams were unable to stop the threat was not revealed through yesterday’s testimony.
  6. The investigation has determined there was one shooter, and that he was killed by a single Secret Service counter sniper firing one shot. 
  7. At this point there is no evidence leading investigators to believe the shooter conspired with others to carry out the assassination attempt.
  8. There were no requests for additional resources made or denied relevant to the July 13 rally.
  9. The Secret Service investigation is to be completed within 60 days and will have detailed timelines and evaluations of where planning and execution failed. An independent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation and a criminal investigation by the FBI are also underway. Combined, those three investigations are intended to provide answers to all questions related to the July 13 assassination attempt and to prevent future failures.
  10. At the completion of those investigations, the Secret Service will determine what failures occurred and who is to be held accountable for those failures.

While it’s understandable that Director Cheatle needed to be cautious with details that are not yet confirmed or remain under investigation, she failed yesterday in her preparation and willingness to share specifics that would have helped reduce the speculation and conspiracy theories that are growing by the day.

UPDATE: It has been reported this morning that Director Cheatle tendered her resignation this morning, stepping down from her role as head of the Secret Service.