Several Republican Senators confronted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle during the Republican National Convention.
Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), and others led the confrontation.
Cheatle refused to answer questions related to the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump and attempted to flee, saying it was inappropriate to be having such a discussion during the event.
The confrontation followed the House Oversight and Accountability Committee issuing a subpoena to Cheatle.
“No shame. No concern. You’re supposed to protect the president of the United States,” Barrasso told Cheatle.
As Cheatle attempted to walk away, the senators declared, “We’re going with you.”
Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) added, “You answer to us.”
In a follow-up to the confrontation, the senators released a video statement, with Barrasso saying, “Senator Blackburn and I just went face to face with the director of the Secret Service, asking for specific answers about what happened with President Trump in Pennsylvania and how that shooter was able to get off a clear shot when the FBI with the Secret Service knew that there was a suspicious person an hour in advance of when the shooting occurred.”
“And they identified a potential threat at 5:51,” Blackburn noted. “She would not answer our questions. She wanted to say it was not the time or place. This is after we’ve been through a conference call today where the question queue got cut off. But I’ve got a message for her: She can run, but she cannot hide because the American people want to know how an assassination attempt was carried out on former President Donald Trump.”
Cheatle also released a statement on the matter, declaring that she has no intention to resign: “Continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident and U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has no intentions to step down.”
“She deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparently in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews,” the statement added.
U.S. Senators were recently informed during a conference call that the Secret Service had flagged Trump’s shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, as suspicious an hour before the assassination attempt.
The conference call was cut short, however.
Barrasso told reporters that he and other senators “had questions that we were gonna say, ‘Wait a second, what really happened there? Who’s going to be held accountable? Who was in charge of that building? Why wasn’t the roof scrutinized? How did all these things happen?’”
“They didn’t answer any of those questions for us.”
