US Secret Service chief resigns after Trump assassination attempt

US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after the agency came under harsh scrutiny for its failure to stop a would-be assassin from wounding former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally, the White House said on Tuesday.

The Secret Service, which is responsible for the protection of current and former US presidents, faces a crisis after a gunman was able to fire on Trump from a roof overlooking the outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July.

"The independent review to get to the bottom of what happened on 13 July continues, and I look forward to assessing its conclusions," Democratic President Joe Biden said in a statement. "We all know what happened that day can never happen again."

Secret Service Deputy Director Ronald Rowe, a 24-year veteran of the agency, will serve as acting director, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

Multiple congressional committees and the internal watchdog of the US Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service's parent organisation, are investigating its performance. Biden, who has ended his re-election campaign, has also called for an independent review.

Cheatle faced bipartisan condemnation when she appeared before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee on Monday, declining to answer questions from frustrated lawmakers about the security plan for the rally and how law enforcement responded to the suspicious behaviour of the gunman.

Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers had called on her to resign. NBC News was the first to report that Cheatle would leave her post.

Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, was grazed in the right ear, and one rallygoer was killed in the gunfire. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.

"While Director Cheatle's resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward," James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement. "We will continue our oversight of the Secret Service."

Cheatle, who has led the agency since 2022, told lawmakers she took responsibility for the shooting, calling it the largest failure by the Secret Service since then-President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.

House leaders said on Tuesday they planned to form a bipartisan task force to probe the shooting.

Much of the criticism has focused on the failure to secure the roof of an industrial building where the gunman was perched about 150 yards (140 m) from the stage where Trump was speaking.

The rooftop was declared outside the Secret Service security perimeter for the event, a decision criticised by former agents and lawmakers.

Cheatle held a top security role at PepsiCo when Biden named her Secret Service director in 2022. She previously served 27 years in the agency.

She took over following a series of scandals involving the Secret Service that scarred the reputation of an elite and insular agency.

Ten Secret Service agents lost their jobs after revelations they brought women, some of them prostitutes, back to their hotel rooms ahead of a trip to Colombia by then-President Barack Obama in 2012.

The agency also faced allegations that it erased text messages from around the time of the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Those messages were later sought by a congressional panel probing the riot.

(Reuters)