By Gorodenkoff @Adobe Stock
Fire the Head of the Secret Service
For at least the last 15 years, according to editors of NRO, the Secret Service has been “plagued” by security lapses and scandals. The fix is easy: whomever wins the presidential election, the director of the SS needs to go. If she refuses to resign, fire her, which would help restore competence in the Secret Service.
By her own admission, Cheatle estimated the USSS was notified about Crooks’s presence “two to five times” before the shooting took place, and she admitted the rooftop was considered a vulnerability before the shooting.
When asked why the Secret Service denied more director Kimberly Cheatle refused to explain the number of requests that were denied or in what context, claiming that she could only respond “generically” — even though this issue was obviously going to come up during the hearing and she should have been prepared for it. Cheatle obfuscated similarly when other lawmakers revisited the repeated requests from the Trump campaign for more security.
Cheatle disclosed that the FBI was not on top of the roof where Thomas Crooks opened fire because “it was “sloped” and therefore unsafe to put security up there,” reports editors at NRO.
Cheatle backed off the “sloped roof” claim, saying that she “should have been more clear” and that she was just making a general statement that they prefer “sterile rooftops” but that the matter in this specific instance was still under investigation.
Despite frantic spectators shouting at the Secret Service two minutes before the shooting to draw their attention to the roof, the SS didn’t pull Crook’s Trump off the stage.
Once again, Cheatle said she would only respond “in generalities” that “the people in charge of protecting the president on that day would never bring the former president out if there was a threat that had been identified.” (Rep. Raja) Krishnamoorthi noted, however, that there were three instances in the 20 minutes before the shooting in which a threat was identified.
During her testimony, Cheatle estimated the USSS was notified about Crooks’s presence “two to five times” before the shooting took place, and she admitted the rooftop was considered a vulnerability before the shooting. She also conceded that, nine days after the shooting, she still hasn’t visited the scene of the crime.
The hearing went badly. After it ended, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, joined Come, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, in writing a letter to Cheatle demanding her resignation. This type of bipartisan condemnation of a witness is rare and a testament to how poorly Cheatle’s testimony went.
Who Is in Charge?
Cheatle insists she will not resign.
