LOS ANGELES.–Resigning in disgrace since the near assassination of 78-year-old GOP nominee former President Donald Trump, 51-year-old Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle refused to answer the many questions posed on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. Cheatle was like a deer caught in the headlights, showing she either doesn’t know her job as Secret Service director or has a degree of social incompetence that leaves her frozen unable to answer the most basic questions. Oversight committee members wants to know some very simple facts about Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pa. that left an assassin crawling up on an accessible roof for a clear, unobstructed 150 foot shot to Trump’s head on the stage. Cheatle had refused to resign until today, after she was denounced by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), normally defending Democrat nominees.
Raskin asked Cheatle to step down from the Secret Service incompetence on July 13, despite high praise from Trump about the immediate agents that surrounded him in the day of the shooting. Trump was deferential to the Secret Service talking to Jesse Waters on Fox News last night with Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) his running mate. Members of the Oversight Committee, especially 51-year-old Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), were far harsher in their assessment of Secret Service failures than Trump. Cheatle couldn’t answer basic questions about how a renegade shooter was able to get underneath Secret Service and local police security to get off seven shots, grazing Trump’s ear, killing 50-year-old local firefighter Cory Competore and seriously injuring two others. If a Secret Service sniper didn’t take out 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks more would have been killed.
Resigning he post, Cheatle showed the most crass, defensive style, stonewalling Oversight Committee questions, asked not only to skewer her but to get real answers during an ongoing Secret Service and FBI investigation. President Joe Biden did next to nothing after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump before he withdrew July 20 from the 2024 race. Trump said Biden said it was a good thing that he moved his head. How’s that for a presidential response, someone with five months left on his term. Biden said nothing about the colossal Secret Service failure or what, if anything, he would do with his Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. Whether admitted to or not, Biden doesn’t have a clue what’s going on inside or outside the White House. Yet after nominating Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him, no one questions the damage Biden does to the White House.
America’s enemies, like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, have known for years Biden’s incapacity, taking full advantage of his disabilities. Once Biden ineptly withdrew from Afghanistan Aug. 26, 2021 enduring a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. soldiers, foreign adversaries knew that Biden was a disabled commander-in-chief. Six months later, 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin moved the Russian army into Ukraine but only after Biden refused to discuss with Putin for months new security arrangements. With the White House keeping Biden on a tight leash and the corrupt U.S. media covering up his cognitive decline, Biden has driven the country into a quagmire in Ukraine and fueling runaway inflation in the U.S. economy. Biden’s feeble response to Trump’s near assassination shows that he’s not in control of anything.
Republicans have tried but failed to get Vice President Kamala Harris and other Cabinet officials to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Biden from office. Biden is sold as an American patriot for withdrawing from the 2024 race. Biden rejected all attempts to remove him from the 2024 race, forcing key Democrats like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former President Barack Obama to pressure Biden to get out. So when it comes to the Secret Service, Biden wouldn’t have fired Cheatle if she were the one holding the ladder for Crooks. Oversight Committee members only wanted Cheatle to answer basic questions. Had she appeared forthcoming and contrite, she might have held onto her job. But saying she couldn’t answer anything because of the ongoing investigation infuriated Committee members, leading Raskin to call for her resignation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he was glad Cheatle finally responded to calls for her resignation. “I’m happy to see that she has heeded the call of both Republicans and Democrats,” Johnson said. “Now we have to pick up the pieces. We have to rebuilt the American people’s faith and trust in the Secret Service as an agency,” Johnson said, knowing that Biden is in no position to appoint another director. Cheatle had all the experience, 27 years with the Secret Service, but no managerial skills to lead the department. Oversight Committee members want answers for the colossal breakdown in Secret Service procedures that led to the July 13 assassination attempt. Trump and Harris will face many large crowds between now and the Nov. 5 election. Congress cannot allow 81-year-old cognitively disabled Joe Biden to pick the next Secret Service Director.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
