The resignation was submitted about 10 days after former President Donald Trump was shot during a campaign rally.
Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the U.S. Secret Service, has resigned.
“I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” she said in the email to Secret Service staff on July 23. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.”
Ms. Cheatle, who was sworn in as director in 2022, had previously rebuffed calls to resign in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
The former president was struck in the ear during a Pennsylvania rally on July 13 by a bullet fired by a shooter from a nearby roof. Secret Service agents were not on the roof because it was sloped, Ms. Cheatle has said.
Lawmakers from both parties told Ms. Cheatle during a contentious hearing on Monday that she should step down.
“If you have an assassination attempt on a president, or a candidate, you need to resign,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said.
During the hearing, Ms. Cheatle acknowledged the Secret Service was alerted before the rally started to a suspicious person but said the man, who ended up being the shooter, was not deemed a threat until moments before shots were fired.
Ms. Cheatle acknowledged the assassination attempt was the agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades but said she was the right person to helm the Secret Service to ensure accountability. She rankled lawmakers by repeatedly refusing to discuss specifics of what went wrong during the rally and not committing to firing any personnel once the agency’s internal probe wraps up.
“I’m happy to see that she has heeded the call of both Republicans and Democrats. Now we have to pick up the pieces: we have to rebuild the American people’s faith and trust in the Secret Service as an agency,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.
President Joe Biden, who had declined to terminate Ms. Cheatle, said in a statement that he thanked her “for answering the call to lead the Secret Service.”
Joseph Lord and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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