In a testy hearing before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) slammed U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Director Kimberly Cheatle after the near assassination of former President Donald Trump on her watch.
On July 13, Trump was hosting a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when shots rang out from a nearby rooftop, with only bullet grazing Trump’s ear and narrowly missing his head.
“Miss Cheatle, the shooter was set up on the roof of that AGL International building, as we know,” Burchett said during the hearing. “Was the roof identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally?”
Cheatle acknowledged that the roof was a vulnerability, and said local police had been assigned to stand watch inside the building. She failed to provide details when asked how it was possible that no law enforcement personnel heard the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, when he climbed onto the roof.
Burchett asked when Crooks was identified as a person of interest, and when Secret Service knew about it, implying that the rally could have been pushed back to make sure there were no threats to the former president. Cheatle could did not provide specific answers, leading to a rebuke from Burchett.
“Ma’am I submit to you, you got a guy who’s going to be the next president of the United States, he’s on the stage, I’ve been to these events, we’ve all been to these events, a car backfires and there’s a 15 minute dadgum wait,” he said. “That is unacceptable.”
“Did y’all deny President Trump’s request for more security? Yes or no? And when was the most recent request for additional security?” Burchett asked.
“The rally request for security, all of those requests were fulfilled,” Cheatle replied.
Burchett then noted that the USSS agents who were protecting Trump at the rally were different than those who were protecting him at the Republican National Convention (RNC) last week, noting that Trump’s detail was much smaller in number and much less physically intimidating at the rally in Pennsylvania.
Cheatle explained that former President Trump’s detail works “shift work” and that some of the members of his detail may not have been at the rally in Pennsylvania, but may have joined Trump at the RNC after the shooting.
After a few more unfruitful question and answer attempts, Burchett launched into his own monologue.
“Miss Cheatle, you said ‘the buck stops with me,’ and I agree. I don’t think you should resign, I think you should have been fired,” Burchett told Cheatle during the hearing. “You are a DEI horror story. I’ve told my daughter – my wife and I – we talk to her all the time about how she’s going to succeed in life. She’ll succeed by achieving. Ma’am, you have not achieved a day in your life. You’ve let the American people down. If it was up to me, you’d be gone.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X/Twitter.
Photo “Tim Burchett” by GOP Oversight.
