Cheatle, head of the Secret Service will be removed from office
The US Secretary of Homeland Security: 'We are talking about a failure. It cannot happen again'
2' min read
2' min read
Kimberly Cheatle will be removed from her post, probably already within the next few hours. It was up to her, as head of the Secret Service, to ensure Donald Trump's security during the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. But with her the whole system that has to protect Republican and Democratic leaders during this long and tense election campaign from insane acts or terrorist attacks is under indictment.
America split in two by politics, discovers it is more vulnerable, but everyone in the US has been asking the same questions for two days. How did the bomber Thomas Crooks approach the rally area with an AR-15 rifle? How come the rooftop from which he fired was not checked? Was Trump secured quickly or could he have been shot again? And again: did someone really - as some Republican supporters present in Butler claimed - report the man to law enforcement before the attack?
A few hours after the attack, President Joe Biden announced a major overhaul of security systems. The US Congress opened an investigation into possible flaws in the security service on Saturday night. And already for the Republican Convention, which opened yesterday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, very special controls and measures have been adopted.
"We moved into the field quickly during the incident: our team of sharpshooters neutralised the attacker and our agents took protective measures to ensure the safety of former President Donald Trump." Thus defended herself Kimberly Cheatle, 52, since 2022 director - on appointment by Biden - of the Secret Service, the agency that reports to the Department of Homeland Security, after a 25-year career in the same agency and a three-year stint at PepsiCo security. "The Secret Service is working with all federal, state, and local agencies involved to understand," Cheatle added, "what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from happening again. We understand the importance of the independent review announced yesterday by President Biden and we will participate fully. We will also work with the appropriate congressional committees on any follow-up action.
"This federal agency has to do its job, it has to move forward, and people have to pay for the consequences of their failures," explained expert Juliette Kayyem, formerly at the Department of Homeland Security during Barack Obama's administration.
