WASHINGTON, US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle admitted Monday that the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump was the agency’s most significant failure in decades.
The shooting was the “most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades,” Cheatle said in testimony before a House of Representative oversight committee.
She took responsibility for security failures that led to the attempted assassination.
“I accept responsibility for this tragedy,” Cheatle said.
She added that she was determined to learn what went wrong at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, when a gunman opened fire from the roof of a nearby building, striking Trump in the ear, killing one rallygoer and wounding another.
“We are going to look into how this happened, and we are going to take corrective action to ensure it never happens again.” She declined to give specific figures when other committee members asked how many agents were assigned to protect Trump that day,
as well as the number of times the Secret Service has denied Trump’s request for additional security assets.
Cheatle said that the agency provided the assets that were requested for the July 13 rally, and that she felt “there was a sufficient number of agents assigned” to Trump that day.
Source: Kuwait News Agency