Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday in disgrace following her agency’s failure to prevent the near-assassination of Republican nominee Donald Trump and her disastrous congressional testimony on Monday.
"I take full responsibility for the security lapse," Cheatle wrote in an email to her staff on Tuesday. "In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director."
Cheatle’s resignation comes just a day after she was grilled by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee for her agency's failure to protect Trump, who was shot in the ear by a 20-year-old gunman at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13. One rally attendee was killed and two others were injured.
Cheatle, who has served as Secret Service director since August 2022, faced growing calls to step down in the wake of the assassination attempt and on Monday repeatedly refused to answer the congressional committee’s basic questions.
Cheatle acknowledged that the incident was "the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades" and said she took "full responsibility for any security lapse." But she refused to say whether anyone would be fired. Some lawmakers, in turn, called for her termination or resignation.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.) compared Cheatle's performance to that of college presidents during a December hearing on campus anti-Semitism. Harvard University's Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania's Liz Magill stepped down as president after the disastrous hearing.
"I just don't think this is partisan. If you have an assassination attempt on a president, a former president, or a candidate, you need to resign," Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) said to Cheatle.
"You should have come today ready to give us answers. I call upon you to resign today," Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) said.