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Secret Service Implosion

“You’re full of sh*t …”

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The glaring failure of the United States Secret Service to protect former president Donald Trump during this month’s assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania was on vivid display during a U.S. House oversight committee hearing in Washington, D.C. on Monday (July 22, 2024).

Called to testify before the panel was Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle, whose agency inexplicably allowed the president to take the stage despite its awareness of a known threat against his life – and then allowed that threat to squeeze off multiple rounds from an elevated perch less than 150 yards from Trump’s location.

Trump was nicked in the ear by a bullet – one which likely would have killed him had he not turned his head to the right to look at a screen just a moment before it was fired. Two others attending the rally were critically wounded. A fourth person – 50-year-old former fire chief Corey Comperatore – was shot in the head and killed during the attack.

In addition to the operational failure, the optics following the shooting were atrocious for the agency – with one of its female agents captured on video struggling to holster her service weapon as Trump was rushed to safety.

During her testimony on Monday, Cheatle was alternately evasive and obstinate in response to basic questions about the attack and her agency’s failure to prevent it.

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“Did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof?” committee chairman James Comer asked, referring to the location chosen by would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks to open fire on Trump’s rally.

“Sir, I’m sure, as you can imagine, that we are just nine days out from this incident, and there’s still an ongoing investigation,” Cheatle responded.

Cheatle also admitted her agency did not have radio communications from July 13 – or for that matter a minute-by-minute official timeline of what it contended transpired in Butler.

Under questioning from Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, Cheatle tried to downplay the agency’s prior awareness of the threat against Trump’s life.

“The people that are 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,” she said.

“Well, they did,” Krishnamoorthi fired back. “Because we’ve now identified three points in the twenty minutes before the shooting that the threat emerged.”

The most aggressive questioning of Cheatle came from South Carolina’s own Nancy Mace, who began her interrogation by offering Cheatle the opportunity to resign on the spot. When Cheatle declined to do so, Mace grilled her over the Secret Service’s leaking of her testimony to the media prior to providing it to committee members.

“I have no idea how my statement got out,” Cheatle told Mace.

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Mace fired back.

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After getting Cheatle to testify on the record that her agency was “fully cooperating” with the committee, Mace proceeded to detail all the ways in which it wasn’t.

“On July 15th, this committee sent you a list of demands of information that we wanted – has the Secret Service provided this committee a complete list of all law enforcement personnel that were there that day?” Mace asked. “Have you done that? Have you provided a list to the oversight committee. Yes or no?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Cheatle responded.

“That is a no,” Mace fired back. “Have you provided all audio and video recordings in your possession to this committee as we asked on July 15th, yes or no?”

“I would have to get back to you,” Cheatle said again.

“That is a no,” Mace responded. “You’re full of shit today. You’re just being completely dishonest.”

How bad was it? At the conclusion of the hearing, both the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the panel signed a joint letter calling on Cheatle to resign.

“Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures,” Comer and ranking member Jamie Raskin noted in their letter. “In the middle of a presidential election, the Committee and the American people demand serious institutional accountability and transparency that you are not providing. We call on you to resign as Director as a first step to allowing new leadership to swiftly address this crisis and rebuild the trust of a truly concerned Congress and the American people.”

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Cheatle has nothing to worry about as it relates to keeping her job, though. After all, her boss – the president – infamously referred to her as a man during his interview last week with NBC’s Lester Holt.

“Is it acceptable that you have still not heard, at least publicly, from the Secret Service director?” Holt asked Biden.

“Oh, I’ve heard from him,” Biden responded.

Yikes …

Even more problematic for the Secret Service is the fact its investigators aren’t the only ones looking into this crime. While Cheatle was on Capitol Hill refusing to provide the most basic information in response to questions about the assassination attempt, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank was sharing some disturbing records it uncovered.

The Heritage Foundation’s “Oversight Project” took to X to post information it obtained from a review of mobile devices linked to “Crooks and his associates.”

“Someone who regularly visited Crooks home and work also visited a building in Washington, D.C. located in Gallery Place,” the group noted in one post. “This is in the same vicinity of an FBI office … (whose) device is this?”

That’s a very good question …

Count on this media outlet to keep our audience apprised of the latest developments regarding the investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump. Also, remember our open microphone is always on – and always available to anyone with an intelligent take on the situation.

We encourage all responses … even those critical of our coverage.

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UPDATE |

Cheatle resigns.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

(Travis Bell Photography)

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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5 comments

medmondsm Top fan July 22, 2024 at 8:00 pm

Her current salary is $280,000/yr. In her previous job at Pepsi Co, her salary was $1.2 million. Anyone care to solve that riddle?

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The Colonel Top fan July 22, 2024 at 10:31 pm

Assuming she isn’t fired in disgrace, her next gig will be considerably more lucrative as she will be believed to have “connections”. That’s how most of them (the administrative state) eventually get rich. We need to limit the SES level of government to 6-8 years in a lifetime.

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The Colonel Top fan July 22, 2024 at 10:42 pm

Mace showed her own ass while destroying the DEI , er, uhm Dir of the USSS Cheatle. Mace’s points were spot on but her spiel was classless. Cheatle is an empty suit and deserved every bit of the abuse she got today. Some Dims tried to obfuscate bringing up any number of unrelated pet issues of their own (gun control in Texas is the one that sticks in my mind…) but Cheeatle’s lack of preparation and inability or unwillingness to answer the most basic of questions under a loose veil of “investigations underway” and “the FBI’s responsibility” is laughable. She almost made Joe look coherent. She should have been held under “contempt of Congress for her unwillingness to answer basic questions (she refused to specify the number of fired cartridge case found on the roof).

Fire her ass now. She was only hired because she was a favorite of “Dr”. Jill.

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Jennifer Jones Top fan July 23, 2024 at 3:14 pm

Well, yet another black eye for the redneck state. Nancy showed absolutely no class. She should have shown the more educated side of herself. Meanwhile, she sought to identify with the least educated of her constituency. There’s a place for that, and it’s not in a Congressional hearing.

As an aside …
“The American people demand serious institutional accountability and transparency that you are not providing” is a comment that could legitimately be directed at Congress and most state legislatures every single day of the week. The American people, including some of the most incompetent public figures, want way too much access to information that is protected for our own benefit. Meanwhile, those same people, including some of the most incompetent public officials, do not seem to care nearly enough about the information that we should be demanding to make our democracy work.

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VERITAS Top fan July 23, 2024 at 6:53 pm

Sometimes class comes in “four-letter words.” Nancy Mace got the job done. But it doesn’t end with Cheatle’s resignation. This is far from over.

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