US Secret Service director Kim Cheatle has resigned from her role following an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Cheatle faced bipartisan calls to step down after a heated House committee hearing on Monday regarding the incident.
Lawmakers’ frustration grew as she declined to answer questions about the shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania earlier this month.
“As your director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” she said in a resignation letter to agency staff on Tuesday.
Ms Cheatle said she has always “put the needs of the agency first” and it is “with a heavy heart” that she made her decision.
“The scrutiny over the last week has been intense and will continue to remain as our operational tempo increases,” she said in the letter.
“I do not want my calls for resignation to be a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission.”
President Joe Biden said in a statement that he’s grateful for her decades of public service.
“The independent review to get to the bottom of what happened on July 13 continues, and I look forward to assessing its conclusions. We all know what happened that day can never happen again,” he said.
President Biden announced that he will soon appoint a new director for the Secret Service, following recent controversies. In 2022, he appointed Ms. Cheatle to lead the agency, which is responsible for protecting current and former presidents and other officials.
Ms. Cheatle had served with the Secret Service for 27 years in various capacities, including the evacuation of Vice-President Dick Cheney during the September 11, 2001, attacks and later as the supervisor of Biden’s protective detail when he was vice-president. She eventually became the deputy assistant director of protective operations.
However, her leadership faced scrutiny after a shooting at Trump’s rally on July 13 left a bullet grazing the former president’s ear. Trump appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee the following week with a bandage over his wound. The incident also resulted in one audience member’s death and two others being badly wounded.
Lawmakers grilled Ms. Cheatle about security measures at the campaign rally during a tense six-hour House Oversight Committee hearing on Monday.
Ms. Cheatle accepted responsibility for the security failures but resisted calls to resign. She described the shooting as “the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades.” Witnesses reported seeing a suspicious man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, with a rifle on a rooftop minutes before the shots were fired.
Crooks was killed by a counter-sniper shortly after. Despite the presence of multiple security and law enforcement agencies at the rally, Ms. Cheatle did not provide new information on how Crooks accessed the rooftop or why Trump was allowed to take the stage.
Following the hearing, committee leaders James Comer and Jamie Raskin sent a letter to Ms. Cheatle expressing their belief that she should step down. Mr. Comer stated that Ms. Cheatle “instilled no confidence” during the hearing in her ability to fulfill the Secret Service’s protective mission.
“The Oversight Committee’s hearing resulted in Director Cheatle’s resignation and there will be more accountability to come,” he said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter.
In a post on his social media platform on Tuesday, Trump said: “The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called her resignation “overdue” and said he is “glad she did the right thing”.
“Now we have to pick up the pieces, we have to rebuild the American people’s faith and trust in the Secret Service,” he told reporters.
Teresa Wilson, an ex-marine who attended the rally, told the BBC that she is “glad [Ms Cheatle] succumbed to the pressure”.
“I hope they still follow through with the independent investigation now that she’s resigned. We want answers,” she said.