Senators chase Secret Service director at RNC, demand answers on Trump shooting
A group of U.S. senators confronted and then chased U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday, demanding answers about Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
“Resignation or full explanation to us right now,” U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, the third-ranking member in the GOP Senate conference can be heard telling Cheatle in a video of the encounter posted to X, formerly Twitter, by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee.
The four-minute-long clip shows a handful of GOP senators peppering Cheatle with questions about gaps in security at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, including one moment where Blackburn asks: “Why would anyone allow the president to go onstage when you know you’ve got a potential threat?”
Cheatle declined to answer the line of questioning, which occurred in the hospitality suite for RNC security partners, telling the senators that she was “happy to answer questions,” but would “do it in an appropriate format.”
Her attempt to exit was met with swift rebuke from the senators, who followed her through the halls of convention, yelling at her for refusing to address their concerns.
“This was an assassination attempt. You owe the people answers. You owe President Trump answers,” Blackburn shouted at Cheatle, who ignored the senator.
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Blackburn recounted the confrontation during a Nashville radio interview Thursday afternoon, saying that Cheatle also refused to discuss the matter in private with the senators.
“She walked out — so we said ‘we’re going with you,’” Blackburn remembered, adding that Cheatle’s protection detail escorted her out of the event and up arena stairs. “We follow her to a hallway — having told her we would go somewhere quiet and talk — and they slam the door, and they block us."
“They gave her more protection than they gave Donald Trump," Blackburn said.
Lawmakers in recent days have expressed worries about potential security lapses that allowed for a shooter to fire shots at Trump during his Pennsylvania campaign rally and the safety of future, high-profile events during this election season. Senators on Wednesday were briefed on the attack by officials at the FBI and Secret Service.
They were told that law enforcement officials were notified about suspicious activity around or on the building 20 minutes before shots were fired Saturday and the suspect was killed, according to a senator who attended the briefing.
President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said they planned to launch an “independent review” into the Secret Service’s operational conduct. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general announced he would also investigate.
Blackburn doubled down on her criticism of Cheatle and again urged her to resign in a statement to USA TODAY on Thursday.
"She can run but she cannot hide," Blackburn said. "She is a failed leader and she needs to immediately step down from her position.”
The Secret Service in a statement said that Cheatle had “no intentions of stepping down,” from her post at the agency.
"She deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews,” it said.
Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook, Josh Meyer and Aysha Bagchi