Secret Service director resigns after Trump assassination attempt, bipartisan criticism

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday following bipartisan criticism after a gunman nearly assassinated former President Donald Trump. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has appointed Ronald Rowe as acting director. Rowe is the Secret Service’s deputy director and has been with the agency for 24 years. 

Members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee excoriated Cheatle when she testified before the panel on Monday: both for the Secret Service’s failure to prevent a shooter from getting within striking distance of the Republican nominee for president and her perceived evasiveness when answering questions. 

Republican committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky and Democratic ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland called on her to resign. 

“The Oversight Committee’s hearing resulted in Director Cheatle’s resignation and there will be more accountability to come,” Comer said in a statement following the resignation announcement. “The Secret Service has a no-fail mission yet it failed historically on Director Cheatle’s watch.”

The Secret Service’s handling of the rally where a gunman killed one attendee, injured two others and grazed Trump’s ear is being investigated by the House Oversight Committee, House Homeland Security Committee, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department and DHS is overseeing an independent review. 

Also on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., announced they would form a task force to investigate the attempted assassination. 

“The security failures that allowed an assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life are shocking. In response to bipartisan demands for answers, we are announcing a House Task Force made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats to thoroughly investigate the matter,” they wrote in a statement. “The task force will be empowered with subpoena authority and will move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability and make certain such failures never happen again.”

The leaders said the House would vote on a resolution this week to establish the task force. 

Biden on Tuesday thanked Cheatle for her leadership and service to his family. 

“As a leader, it takes honor, courage and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service,” he said in a statement.  

He also said that he would appoint a new director soon. 

Cheatle spent nearly three decades in the Secret Service before leaving in 2019 to serve as PepsiCo’s senior director of global security. She returned to the agency in 2022 when Biden picked her to be its director — the second woman in the role. She had been on Biden’s detail when he was vice president. 

The first female Secret Service director, Julia Pierson, also resigned due to agency failure. In her case, an individual managed to scale a White House fence, ran past guards and entered the building. 

Out of 458 agencies, the Secret Service placed 403 for its employees’ ratings of senior leaders, according to a 2023 ranking of the best places to work in the federal government as measured by the Office of Personnel Management’s annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and compiled by the Partnership for Public Service.