Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will face a barrage of questions Monday morning as lawmakers seek answers about how the biggest Secret Service breach in four decades occurred under her watch.
The agency chief is expected to take full responsibility for the shooting, according to excerpts of her remarks obtained by CNN.
“The solemn mission of the Secret Service is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed,” the director is expected to tell lawmakers.
“As Director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security failures.”
But he is expected to admit that the Secret Service still has few answers about what happened. The agency “must know what happened and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like the one on July 13 does not happen again. Thinking about what we should have done differently is never far from my thoughts.”
Monday’s hearing marks the first time the public will hear at length about what happened from Cheatle under questioning by the House Oversight Committee.
Since the July 13 shooting, he has not held any news conferences and given very few interviews, but he has insisted he will not resign.
Comer said on Fox News Sunday that the hearing would last six hours and Cheatle would face “hundreds of questions.”
“The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a significant budget, but it has now become the face of incompetence,” Comer will tell the hearing, according to his opening remarks obtained by DailyMail.com.
Since the July 13 shooting, he has held no news conferences and given very few interviews, but he has insisted he will not resign.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will face a barrage of questions Monday morning as lawmakers seek answers about how the biggest Secret Service breach in four decades occurred under her watch.
Last Saturday, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks shot Donald Trump multiple times, severing his ear, injuring several attendees and tragically killing former firefighter Corey Comperatore at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And last week, lawmakers received a private briefing from the Secret Service where they learned that the shooter had been spotted about an hour before he fired his first shot.
Even more troubling, Secret Service snipers spotted Crooks on the roof 20 minutes before he shot the former president.
Trump took the stage at 6:02 p.m.
Then, at around 6:12 p.m., Crooks’ first shots were heard.
Cheatle could not tell lawmakers how the shooter got to the roof.
At the time of the shooting, police officers were inside the building, 147 yards from where Trump was standing, but not on top of it.
Cheatle curiously claimed that no agents had been placed on the roof because it was tilted.
“That particular building has a sloped roof at its highest point. So there’s a safety factor that has to be taken into account because we don’t want to put someone on a sloped roof,” he told ABC News in an interview Tuesday.
Comer said on Fox News Sunday that the hearing would last six hours and Cheatle would face “hundreds of questions.”
“And then, you know, the decision was made to secure the building from the inside.”
What unfolded was a security nightmare: Thomas Matthew Crooks managed to scale the building and secure his position, while law enforcement struggled to locate him, even amid urgent warnings from members of Trump’s camp. But there was not enough time to act on the tips, he said.
“The shooter was identified as a potential suspect,” Cheatle said. “Unfortunately, with the rapid succession of events, when that individual was finally located, he was on the roof and was able to shoot the former president.”
She was referring to witness statements that they alerted law enforcement about the threat, but officers were unable to eliminate it in time. Officials pointed to the officer who initially responded, who stood up from the roof and ducked back down when the gunman pointed his gun at him.
Cheatle has taken responsibility for the fatal security breach but has denied calls for his resignation.
“The responsibility is mine,” he said.
“It was unacceptable,” he told ABC. “And it’s something that should never happen again.”
“While we are extremely grateful to the Secret Service agents who did their jobs under enormous pressure, this tragedy could have been prevented. The Secret Service has a mission of zero errors, but it failed on July 13 and in the days leading up to the rally,” Comer is also expected to say, as he will again call for Cheatle’s resignation.
Crooks’ possible motive for committing such an atrocity was also questioned on the call.
Officials did not confirm a motive for the attack, saying its rationale remains a mystery.
Authorities said they have yet to find any ideological material that could shed light on why Crooks decided to shoot the former president.
But they did reveal that the criminals operated several accounts on encrypted platforms that they are still working to gain access to.
Here is a timeline of how that fateful July 11th happened:
13:00 hours
The Butler Farm Show venue opened at 1:00 p.m.
A rally began that lasted for hours, with MAGA supporters immediately flocking to the camping area.
Security surveyed the area and set up perimeters, but questions have been raised about how the gunman was able to secure a clear shot just 400 feet from the stage.
5 pm
An hour before Trump took the stage, at about 5 p.m., former Republican Senate candidate Sean Parnell fired up the crowd, drawing cheers as he criticized President Biden and his faltering campaign.
With the sun still high on a bright day, Trump appeared with the song “God Bless the USA” playing over loudspeakers at 6:03 p.m. and stood waving and shaking his fist at the crowd for several minutes.
6:11 pm
Trump pulled out a large graph with statistics about the migration crisis at the southern border and told the crowd at 6:11 p.m.: “That graph is a couple of months old…”
“If you want to see something really sad, take a look at what happened,” Trump continued, before abruptly clutching the side of his head as loud “pops” filled the space at the event.
6:12 pm
The 78-year-old fell to the ground in an instant as five more shots rang out in rapid succession, before four Secret Service agents rushed onto the scene and pounced on the former president.
Shocking images showed Trump cowering on the ground as officers protected him, blood dripping down his cheek.
Several more Secret Service agents continued to flood the stage, while four heavily armed officers lined the perimeter ordering attendees to “get down.”
The sniper, sitting 400 feet in front of the rally on an exposed rooftop, fired another shot at the stage a second later as Trump fans streamed out of the stands.
The Secret Service rushed to take control of the pandemonium as three attendees were shot, one fatally, within seconds.
6:13 pm
An emergency room doctor who had blood splattered on his shirt later said he sprang into action to perform emergency CPR on a victim.
“The guy turned around and got trapped between the benches. He was shot in the head. There was a lot of blood and he had brain matter,” he told CBS News.
“I gathered him together and got people to help me a lot. I also did chest compressions and CPR.”
6:14 pm
Microphones surrounding the stage captured astonishing details of the urgent response, beginning with one ordering people to chant: “Get down, get down, get down.”
At the same time, snipers on a rooftop near the stands were seen firing at the gunman, and Secret Service agents surrounding Trump were heard on microphones confirming the moment he was shot down.
Despite the chaos at the scene, the protesters seemed to be holding their breath to see if Trump would be hit.
A blood-covered Donald Trump raised his fist after being shot in the ear by a sniper eight minutes after taking the stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In a move that generated iconic images that would define his candidacy, Trump stood up and triumphantly raised his fist in the air, pumping it toward his supporters in great relief.
“USA, USA, USA,” the crowd chanted at the spectacle, with a blood-spattered Trump appearing to utter the word “fight” several times as Secret Service tried to whisk him away.
As he stood up from the ground, an officer grabbed a white cloth and held it to Trump’s bleeding ear, telling him: “Hold it to your head, it’s bloody.”
“Are we okay?” one male officer says, as another quickly responds, “Shooter!”
“The shooter is down. Can we move?” one of them says. “There is no danger, there is no danger, there is no danger. Let’s move.”
Trump repeatedly ordered the agents to “let me get my shoes,” to which one responded: “I got it, sir, I got it.”
The gunman was killed by officers shortly after opening fire, while images emerged online showing him apparently shot in the head as he crouched on a roof.
In a later image, Crooks was seen lying lifeless on the roof, surrounded by law enforcement officers standing above him.
Several camouflaged police officers emerged from the side of the stage, part of a massive police presence that flooded the area within minutes of the first shot being fired.
At 6:14 p.m., Trump was escorted to his motorcade by a dozen Secret Service agents, who formed a protective human shield around him.
Before getting into his SUV, Trump raised his fist again to signify that he had triumphantly survived the assassination attempt.