Progressive Rep. Maxwell Frost calls for Secret Service chief to resign
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign Monday, joining a number of Democrats who have similarly expressed frustration following her congressional testimony earlier that day.
“The mass shooting at the campaign rally + attempted assassination of the former President was a massive failure of the Secret Service,” Frost wrote in a post on the social platform X.
“Unfortunately, in today’s hearing, Director Cheatle barely answered questions and evaded legitimate concerns. She should immediately resign,” he continued.
Frost included a short clip from his exchange with Cheatle earlier that day during the hearing. In the exchange, Frost pressed Cheatle on how many times the Secret Service was alerted to suspicious activity prior to the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
“I don't have an exact number to share with you today, but from what I've been able to discern, somewhere between two and five times there was some sort of communication about a suspicious individual,” Cheatle responded.
“To the Secret Service specifically?” Frost asked. Cheatle responded with a nonverbal confirmation.
Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) joined calls for Cheatle to resign at the close of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing.
“I don’t want to add to the director’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I will be joining the chairman in calling for the resignation of the director, just because I think that this relationship is irretrievable at this point,” Raskin said. “And I think that the director has lost the confidence of Congress at a very urgent and tender moment in the history of the country. And we need to very quickly move beyond this.”
Shortly after the hearing ended, Raskin, along with Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a joint letter to Cheatle asking her to resign.
“Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures. In the middle of a presidential election, the Committee and the American people demand serious institutional accountability and transparency that you are not providing,” they wrote in a rare joint letter.
“We call on you to resign as Director as a first step to allowing new leadership to swiftly address this crisis and rebuild the trust of a truly concerned Congress and the American people.”
The call from Raskin adds to the growing number of Democrats demanding Cheatle resign — numbers that grew over the course of a disastrous four-hour hearing.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) also called for Cheatle’s resignation during the hearing, joining Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who was the first Democrat to make that demand over the weekend.
Many Republicans have joined the call for Cheatle to resign, or for President Biden to fire her if she doesn’t.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called on Cheatle to resign Wednesday, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for new leadership at the agency on the same day.