Secret Service chief resigns in anger over Trump shooting

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Chittle resigned on Tuesday over the agency’s failure to prevent Assassination attempt Former President Donald Trump exist Pennsylvania campaign rally Earlier this month.

Chittel’s resignation, first reported by NBC News citing sources, came a day after she was sharply criticized by House committee members during a hearing about the Secret Service’s actions ahead of Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler Township.

Chittel rejected calls to resign at that hearing, saying she was the best person to lead the Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the president, vice president, their families and the major presidential candidates.

The director angered members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee by refusing to answer numerous questions about the Secret Service’s actions surrounding the Trump rally, during which the Republican presidential candidate was nearly killed by 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks. One man died in the shooting and two others were seriously injured.

“In light of recent events, it is with sadness that I have made the difficult decision to resign as Director,” Chittel said in a letter to Secret Service staff on Tuesday.

“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders and financial infrastructure. On July 13, we failed to fulfill that mission,” said Chittel, who has been with the agency for nearly 30 years.

“The scrutiny has been intense over the past week and will continue as the tempo of our operations accelerates,” she wrote. “As your supervisor, I take full responsibility for this security breach.”

president Joe BidenIn a statement, he thanked Chittle for her “decades of public service” and said: “As a leader, it takes honor, courage and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization that has one of the most challenging jobs in public service.”

Biden also said he plans to appoint a new Secret Service director “soon.”

President House Oversight The committee said in a statement about her resignation that it would not stop it from demanding “more accountability” from the Secret Service.

Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and other committee members who called for her resignation said, “The Secret Service’s mission is never to fail, but during Director Chittle’s tenure, that mission has failed time and again.”

“During yesterday’s Oversight Committee hearing, Director Chittel failed to demonstrate confidence in her ability to ensure the Secret Service accomplishes its mission of protection,” Cuomo said.

“While Director Cheatle’s resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a comprehensive review of how these security breaches occurred so that we can prevent them from continuing to occur.”

Criticism of Chittel has focused on the Secret Service’s failure to secure the rooftop, which Chittel used as a sniper base to shoot Trump and rally attendees, among other oversights.

Crooks was on the roof of the building about 150 yards from the stage where Trump was speaking and had a clear view and shot of the stage.

The Secret Service did not extend security for the rally to the entire complex, including the building, but instead turned over security for the area to local law enforcement officials.

Secret Service agents also allowed Trump to go on stage to give his speech because local police reported seeing a suspicious person at the event. The person turned out to be Crooks, who fired multiple shots at Trump before being killed by a Secret Service sniper who had spotted Crooks on the roof.

After the shooting, Chittel was widely mocked for explaining the decision not to send a law enforcement sniper to the roof, while Crooks was seen climbing to the roof by rally attendees, who reported his actions to the police.

Chittel told ABC News that the roof is sloped at its highest point.

“For safety reasons, we didn’t want someone climbing up the sloping roof,” she told ABC News. “So we decided to secure the building from the inside.”

This weekend, the Secret Service acknowledged that it had mistakenly said after the shooting that the agency had not rejected a request from the Trump campaign for increased security.

The shooting was the most serious assassination attempt on a U.S. president in more than 40 years and came after the Secret Service received intelligence that Trump was the target of an Iranian assassination plot. Crooks had no ties to Iran.

The Secret Service has been the target of criticism in recent years for a series of scandals and missteps.