Influence, Negligence, and Coverups: Cheatle's Leadership and the Near-Fatal Consequences for Trump

Ongoing concerns about a pattern of mishaps, misconduct, and cover-ups within the United States Secret Service, particularly under the leadership of Director Kimberly Cheatle, face renewed and urgent scrutiny. Cheatle, who worked on Jill Biden’s security detail when Joe Biden was vice president and also worked on former Vice President Dick Cheney’s detail in the early 2000s, was appointed head of the agency in August 2022. Several incidents, raising real alarm, have happened on her watch in that short time.

A short list of controversies under Cheatle’s leadership include: an October 2022 motorcade for Vice President Kamala Harris being involved in a one-car accident on a closed roadway; an April 2023 incident in which an intoxicated man entered the home of National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan; an April 2024 incident in which armed special agent assigned to Vice President Harris’s detail brawled with several other agents; and now, the most egregious, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump last Saturday.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, armed with an AR-style rifle, managed to scale a building and access its roof, which offered a direct sightline to former President Donald Trump, speaking less than 150 yards away at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.

It was by chance that Trump, deviating from his teleprompter, turned his head to look at a chart displayed for the crowd at the exact moment a bullet grazed his ear instead of piercing his skull. No thanks can be given to the failed security preparations under Cheatle’s leadership, as the country breathed a collective sigh of relief upon learning the former president and now leading presidential candidate was safe. Cheatle’s extreme negligence placed Trump’s life and the stability of the nation in jeopardy. 

‘Sloped’ Roofs Now Too Dangerous for Secret Service 

A security operations plan had positioned three counter-snipers from Beaver County’s Emergency Services Unit (ESU) team inside the same building to monitor the rally from windows, with none stationed on its roof, as reported by BeaverCountian. Additionally, two sources familiar with the agency’s operations disclosed to NBC News that this site was identified by the Secret Service as a potential vulnerability days before the event, with the agency fully aware of the associated risks.

In an interview with ABC News, Cheatle seemed to downplay the recklessness of the decision not to place any snipers on the roof used by the shooter, leaving vulnerable the closest elevated point just outside of the inner secured perimeter of the rally with a clear line of sight to where Trump would take the stage. She cited the building’s "sloped" roof as "a safety factor" that supposedly made it risky to position personnel there. Never mind the serious risk to the life of a former president who is also the leading presidential candidate during a particularly tumultuous election cycle.

The “sloped” roof of the American Glass Research Building:

Cheatle also seemed to shift blame to local law enforcement, saying that local authorities were tasked with securing the building from where the shots were fired. “There was local police in that building—there was local police in the area responsible for the outer perimeter of the building,” she stated. However, NBC News reported that Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger asserted that the Secret Service was in charge of security outside the venue. “They had meetings the week prior. The Secret Service ran the show. They designated who did what,” Goldinger explained. “In the command hierarchy, they were top, they were No. 1.”

Timeline

A timeline compiled from reports by BeaverCountian and WXPI Channel 11 reveals multiple warnings about Crooks that were seemingly ignored or inadequately addressed:

• A law enforcement officer from Beaver County’s ESU team had seen Crooks on the ground prior to 5:45 p.m.—nearly 30 minutes before shots were fired at 6:11 p.m.—and called him in as a suspicious person with a picture. (WXPI Channel 11)

• Sergeant Gregory Nicol, one of the three municipal counter-snipers stationed inside the building, “saw the guy [Crooks] looking up at the roof of the building he was stationed in, like scoping it out, and took a picture of him that he sent to command as a be on the lookout,” a source within law enforcement said. (BeaverCountian)

• An officer checked the grounds for Crooks at that point, but did not see him where the first picture was taken. (WXPI Channel 11)

• Sergeant Nicol then “saw [Crooks] return to the building, this time carrying a backpack, more warnings were issued to command. [Crooks] sat down, and began looking at his phone. Trump was running about an hour late.” (BeaverCountian)

• Nicol “saw [Crooks] take out a rangefinder to gauge distance from the building to where Trump was going to be speaking, he again notified command about what he was seeing.” (BeaverCountian)

• An officer noticed a suspicious man on a roof near the rally at 5:45 p.m., called it in and took a picture of the person. It’s not clear if Crooks had a gun with him at that point. (WXPI Channel 11)

• Twenty-six minutes after the second picture of Crooks was taken by law enforcement around 5:45 p.m., and the information called in, shots were fired from the roof of the American Glass Research building. (WXPI Channel 11)

It’s unclear whether Sergeant Nicol, named in the BeaverCountian report, is the same officer described in WXPI’s report.

‘A Very Short Period of Time’

Responding to reports that Crooks was seen and identified as potentially suspicious before he opened fire, Cheatle told ABC News that only "a very short period of time" passed between then and the shooting. "Seeking that person out, finding them, identifying them, and eventually neutralizing them took place in a very short period of time,” she said, “and it makes it very difficult."

It’s unclear if the “very short period of time” referenced by Cheatle includes the nearly 30 minutes (at least) of multiple warnings about Crooks, complete with photos taken of him, that were relayed to the command center—warnings issued by law enforcement stationed inside the building under the direction of the Secret Service.

Is it the agency’s position that nearly 30 minutes is such a rapid succession of time that the United States Secret Service cannot reasonably be expected to prevent a 20-year-old would-be assassin, armed with an AR-style rifle, from scaling a building, accessing a roof explicitly left vulnerable under their instruction, and firing at the former president from less than 150 yards away, with a clear line of sight to the stage?

According to reporting by The New York Times, a Secret Service spokesman acknowledged that local police officers radioed agents about a suspicious person on Saturday before Trump went onstage. Were these the same agents in the command center notified by Sergeant Nicol as early as at least 5:45 p.m. that day—nearly 30 minutes before shots were fired? If so, was this crucial information relayed to Trump’s security detail on the ground? If not, why not? And if it was communicated, why was Trump allowed to take the stage?

Cheatle’s explanation for this massive failure focuses on the building’s "sloped" roof and a claimed lack of sufficient time—nearly 30 minutes—to act on the incoming tips well before Trump even took the stage. Cheatle’s downplaying these significant lapses in security does little to mitigate her pattern of what appears to be, at best, negligent and dangerously inadequate leadership.

Kamala Harris and the DNC ‘Pipe Bomb’

Under Cheatle’s earlier supervision as Assistant Director of the Office of Protective Operations, then Vice President-elect Kamala Harris came dangerously close to what the FBI’s Washington Field Office describes as a “viable” explosive device, a situation “that could have seriously injured or killed” the incoming vice president. Julie Kelly expands on Harris’s close encounter in an earlier report.

That afternoon, two alleged improvised explosive devices were found near the Capitol: the first outside the Republican National Committee headquarters (RNC) and the second beside a bench just outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters (DNC). 

Karlin Younger, a FirstNet employee with a counterterrorism background, accidentally discovered the first device near the RNC at 12:40 p.m. The U.S. Capitol Police command center was alerted two minutes later, at 12:42 p.m., according to Steven Sund, former Chief of U.S. Capitol Police, in his book Courage Under Fire. Officers were dispatched around 12:45 p.m. to investigate. Prior to the discovery of a second device outside the DNC, Sund notes that additional officers were sent to canvas that area as a precaution. “There are two protective details at the DNC,” he said, “one for Vice President-elect Harris and the other for a member of the House leadership—and we can’t take any chances.”

Darren Beattie of Revolver News highlighted the casual response of Harris’s security detail upon learning of the explosive device, which came alarmingly close to the U.S. senator and incoming vice president. This response followed an alert from a plainclothes USCP officer who discovered the device around 1:05 p.m. Additionally, footage does not appear to show Harris’s security detail being aware of or perceiving any threat prior to this alert. 

When USCP officers were initially dispatched around 12:45 p.m. to canvas the area following the discovery of the first device at the RNC, was Harris’s security detail not informed of the potential threat?

Nearly two hours before Harris arrived at the DNC that morning, footage captured a bomb-sniffing dog conducting a sweep outside the DNC at 9:29 a.m., near where the explosive would later be discovered. Despite the FBI Washington Field Office’s assertion that both the RNC and DNC devices had been planted the previous evening between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., the explosive went undetected. Not only did the bomb-sniffing dog miss the device, but Harris’s security detail also failed to detect it during their sweep of the premises prior to her arrival. The device was placed next to a bench, sitting there in broad daylight.

Harris left the Capitol that morning at approximately 11:25 a.m. and was escorted by her security detail to the DNC, where she remained for nearly two hours until being evacuated at around 1:17 p.m.—12 minutes after her detail was alerted about the explosive device.

More than three and a half years later, the FBI has yet to identify the suspect who, they claim, planted the devices.

Missing Secret Service Text Messages

Adding to the concerns are the deleted text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, involving two dozen Secret Service agents involved in January 6 operations. CBS News reported that in July 2022, following subpoenas from both the DHS inspector general and the January 6 Committee, the Secret Service handed over the cellphones of these agents. 

Kimberly Cheatle was included on the list of personnel whose phones were subpoenaed.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi claimed that same month that all the messages were erased as part of the agency “reset[ting] its mobile phones to factory settings as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration. In that process, data resident on some phones was lost.”

Gugliemi, who is now defending his embattled boss, confirmed a few days later all of the texts but one were not recoverable.

The agency asserted the one message was the only text relevant to the subpoena and indicated that while a forensic search for additional texts or phone records would be undertaken, such records were likely irrecoverable. It is also unclear whether Cheatle sat for a formal interview by the January 6 Select Committee. If not, why not?

In August 2022—a month after being subpoenaed for the missing cell phone records—it was announced that Cheatle was selected to be the next Director of the United States Secret Service. To date, neither she nor any other law enforcement official involved with Kamala Harris's protective operations on January 6 has provided an explanation for the security lapses.

Escalating Scrutiny

Now, following the attempted assassination of President Trump, Cheatle’s attempts to shift blame and minimize her agency’s responsibility underscore serious concerns about her competence and integrity, demonstrating, at best, extreme negligence, and at worst, a deliberate disregard for the safety of the nation's leaders.

The number of lawmakers calling for Cheatle’s resignation continues to mount after she held a telephone briefing for senators on the security failures. Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics reported that during the call, senators learned that law enforcement had flagged Crooks for suspicious behavior more than an hour before he fired shots at Trump and that counter-snipers had spotted Crooks 20 minutes before the shots rang out. Senators also discovered that the Secret Service was aware of a “potential threat” 10 minutes before Trump took the stage in Pennsylvania but allowed him to go out anyway.

On the day of the attack, the House Oversight Committee sent a written request to Director Cheatle for her voluntary attendance at a public hearing to discuss the July 13 assassination attempt. The committee followed up on July 15, requesting additional information in anticipation of her testimony. Cheatle has since been subpoenaed due to concerns about her willingness to testify under oath. In their July 17 letter, the committee noted that although the Secret Service had previously assured Cheatle’s attendance, DHS officials seem to have intervened, despite allowing her to speak with the media.

New Whistleblower Revelations

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) revealed on Thursday new insights from whistleblowers indicating that the Secret Service faced resource shortages for President Trump's event. These shortages were attributed to the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., which had concluded days earlier, and to First Lady Jill Biden’s visit to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the same day as Trump’s rally. 

Following this disclosure, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) provided additional insights in a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, alleging that the July 13 rally was considered a “loose” event. It was also suggested that the majority of DHS officials assigned to security operations were not traditional USSS agents but were instead drawn from the department’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Whistleblowers further allege that these HSI agents were unfamiliar with the standard protocols typically used at such events.

Diverted Resources and Deadly Consequences

Trump's rally, which was scheduled to begin at 5:00 p.m. on July 13 in Butler, PA, was announced on July 3. Subsequently, it seems, Jill Biden’s team arranged for her to also make an appearance in Pennsylvania that same day, marking her third visit to Pittsburgh in just six weeks, despite having just been there on June 24.

On July 10—one week after Trump’s rally was announced—the White House announced that the First Lady would speak at an Italian Sons and Daughters of America dinner in Pittsburgh at 5 p.m., which coincided with the start time of Trump’s rally, where she ultimately delivered “about five minutes” of remarks to an audience of roughly 300 people.

Despite being aware that the Butler Township Police Department, with only 12 full-time patrol officers according to NBC News, lacked sufficient manpower to secure the building used by the shooter, the Secret Service under Cheatle’s leadership still chose to rely on these limited local resources for Trump’s rally, while redirecting the agency’s resources to accommodate Jill Biden. According to the New York Post, Cheatle, who served on Jill Biden’s security detail when Joe Biden was vice president, has a “close relationship” with the First Lady, and this relationship was instrumental in her appointment as the agency’s director. Is it reasonable to consider whether this close relationship had any influence over the security preparations, or lack thereof, for the Trump rally? 

Further, did the agency’s resource allocation under Cheatle’s leadership, compounded by the known lack of local resources, create a situation where an aspiring assassin could scale an unsecured roof less than 150 yards away, gaining an unobstructed view of where President Trump would take the stage?

Cheatle is expected to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, July 22.