WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Congressman Mike Turner (OH-10), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, questioned Kimberly Cheatle, Director of the Secret Service, during the House Oversight Committee’s hearing, “Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. Trump.”
Director Cheatle testified to the Secret Service’s protocols and its direct response to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, July 13, 2024.
Below is the exchange between Chairman Turner and Director Cheatle:
Chairman Mike Turner: Director Cheatle, your opening statement indicates that the Secret Service constructed a security plan for the site in Pennsylvania. I’m assuming that security plan would also include the security footprint for the site. But it also would be based upon a threat assessment for the threats associated with Donald Trump and the crowd in attendance. Would it not include a threat assessment?
Director Kimberly Cheatle: Yes, it would.
Chairman Turner: So, that threat assessment, as we know, basically would have started with a generalized threat against Donald Trump because he is a presidential candidate. Then it would have gone to ‘he’s a former president’ and he gets security coverage just as Bush, Clinton, Carter, Obama do. And then you also have the heightened political environment. Even for those, it’s clear that the security footprint, that the threat assessment, was insufficient, which permitted a 20-year-old to actually enter with a weapon and shoot Donald Trump.
But I want to ask you about two other aspects of the threat assessment. It is known and public that Iran is a threat risk for Donald Trump. There are threat risks for John Bolton, former Secretary of State Pompeo, and Donald Trump, because they have indicated they want to assassinate them as a result of retaliation for the killing of Soleimani. That is, for Iran, a generalized threat. They are targeting these individuals, but also most recently a specific threat to Donald Trump himself.
Now, I want to enter into the record by UC: A Department of Justice Public Affairs release, a CNN article, an article from Fox News, and an article from CBS, all of which acknowledge that this threat exists for Donald Trump from Iran and that there are specific threats, most recently, that have been acknowledged. Director Cheatle, have you read the intelligence of the generalized threat to Donald Trump by Iran as a result of their desire to retaliate for the killing of Soleimani?
Director Cheatle: I have.
Chairman Turner: Have you read or been briefed about the intelligence of the specific recent threat to Donald Trump from Iran?
Director Cheatle: Yes, I have.
Chairman Turner: Director Wray, when we were getting our briefing, indicated that he thought the threat assessment should have included this threat from Iran. Is it your testimony today that the threat assessment, since you’ve read this intelligence, was sufficient to protect him from this threat from Iran?
Director Cheatle: My testimony today is that the information that we had at the time was known.
Chairman Turner: Was it sufficient? Director Cheatle, was it sufficient for the Iranian threat that you said you have read the intelligence briefings for?
Director Cheatle: That information was passed to--
Chairman Turner: I’m not asking the bureaucratic issue of who did it get passed around to. Director Cheatle, was it sufficient for the specific and generalized threat to Donald Trump’s life from Iran?
Director Cheatle: Yes, I do believe it was.
Chairman Turner: Director Cheatle, is an Iranian assassin more capable than a 20-year-old?
Director Cheatle: Sir, I think we’ve acknowledged that there were gaps and a failure that day.
Chairman Turner: When I raised this issue with Director Wray, he was incensed. He was shocked that the threat assessment of Iran did not seem to be, as he and I discussed, baked in to your security footprint and your threat assessment. And he went on to say that the generalized threat that he has told the whole country that we are under from a potential terrorist threat; he has said we’re under the highest threat levels since 9/11, that the lights are flashing red, and he has specifically indicated that people have crossed the southern border as a result of the Biden Administration’s policy, and that there are in our country today terrorists and individuals who are affiliated with terrorist groups and organizations. That would be a heightened threat environment, Director Cheatle. Would it not?
Director Cheatle: Yes.
Chairman Turner: In his public statements, he has said he is making these statements, because he wants people to take them into consideration in threat assessments, specifically. Now, that would be a threat not just to Donald Trump, but it would also be a threat to the crowd there, wouldn’t it?
Director Cheatle: Yes.
Chairman Turner: Are ISIS terrorists and Al-Qaeda terrorists and international groups and terrorists more capable than a 20-year-old in pulling off a mass shooting or an assassination of Donald Trump?
Director Cheatle: Sir, again, there was clearly a breakdown and a failure that day.
Chairman Turner: Have you read the intelligence of the terrorists that are currently in the United States that Director Wray speaks of, and those individuals that are here that are affiliated with terrorist groups and organizations that are in the process, as Director Wray says, of representing a significant threat of a terrorist attack occurring the United States?
Director Cheatle: I have read reports that apply specifically to the Secret Service’s mission.
Chairman Turner: Director Cheatle, because Donald Trump is alive and thank God he is, you look incompetent. If Donald Trump had been killed, you would have looked culpable. There is no aspect of this that indicates that there has been any protection to Donald Trump. The threat was identified before he took the stage and the shooter was only killed after Donald Trump himself was [shot]. Not only should you resign, if you refuse to do so, President Biden needs to fire you, because his life, Donald Trump’s life, and all the other people which you protect are at risk, because you have no concept of the aspect that the security footprint needs to be correlated to the threat. I yield back.
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