Alternative headline: Secret Service Director First Biden Official to Get Booted for Obvious Failure. In an administration marked by a disgraceful retreat from Kabul that left 13 service members dead and 14,000 Americans left behind to the Taliban, a border crisis that still rages, a bungled response to supply-chain crises and a derailment in East Palestine, Kimberly Cheatle becomes the first to suffer consequences for embarrassing incompetence:
The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly A. Cheatle, resigned on Tuesday, after security failures surrounding the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump and calls for her to step down from prominent Republican lawmakers.
The resignation is a rapid fall for the agency veteran who protected Dick Cheney and Joseph R. Biden Jr. in their vice-presidential tenures and was publicly supported by Biden administration officials after a gunman shot at Mr. Trump at a rally on July 13. The glaring security mistakes before the shooting, however, and the heated criticism that Ms. Cheatle faced in the days since had left her position increasingly in doubt.
“The buck stops with me,” Cheatle told ABC News two days after the assassination attempt nearly cost Donald Trump his life. And in the same breath, Cheatle then insisted that she didn’t need to pay any consequences for the failure. Cheatle continued to insist that she would remain on the job for another week, until running into a bipartisan beat-down yesterday on Capitol Hill.
Her fate was likely sealed in this humiliating exchange with House Democrat Ro Khanna:
REP. KHANNA: “You know what Stuart Knight did after [Regan’s assassination attempt]?”
CHEATLE: “He remained on duty.”
REP. KHANNA: “He resigned. He resigned.” pic.twitter.com/WbmJ4I6FBv
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 22, 2024
There’s not any coming back from that. By the end of the hearing, everyone began demanding her resignation, especially because Cheatle stonewalled the congressional committee throughout her testimony. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez couldn’t believe that Cheatle wanted another 60 days to provide answers on the ability of the Secret Service to protect its assigned notables, for instance. By the time Cheatle finished her testimony, she had no political cover whatsoever.
So did she jump, or did she get pushed? Her boss certainly changed his tune today:
Mayorkas statement on Cheatle resignation today:
“I am grateful to Kimberly Cheatle for her leadership as the Director of the United States Secret Service and for her lifelong devotion to our country.
“Director Cheatle has dedicated her career to public service. She has served… https://t.co/6iQvECT0ed
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 23, 2024
Mayorkas should have to answer for this too. He’s already been impeached over the border crisis and his failures to protect the national security of the United States. DHS is looking like an asylum for incompetents on Mayorkas’ watch, not a necessary bulwark against threats to the US collectively or individually. His initial impulse to support Cheatle despite the worst body-protection failure of the agency since 1981 also needs immediate attention from Congress.
But at least one person has been held accountable. Now, the only question is who demanded that accountability? Joe Biden? Kamala Harris? Barack Obama?
