US Secret Service chief resigns over Trump assassination

Kimberly Chettle, director of the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the president of the United States and other high-ranking officials, said on Tuesday that she would resign from her position as director of the Secret Service. Former U.S. President Donald Trump was shot by a 20-year-old man at a presidential campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, injuring Trump and two other attendees, and another person died. After the assassination attempt, the Secret Service’s poor security measures and serious security loopholes have attracted great attention from the American public. Many politicians have asked Chettle to take responsibility for this and resign immediately from her position as director, and the U.S. Congress has also launched a formal investigation into the security loopholes in the attempted assassination. “I take full responsibility for the security loopholes,” Chettle said in an email to Secret Service employees. The Associated Press has obtained the content of the email and reported it accordingly. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to resign as your director,” the Associated Press quoted Chettle as saying. CNN quoted a source as saying that in her resignation letter, Chettle said she did not want her departure to distract the agents from their mission. Chettle admitted that on July 13, the day of the shooting, the agency “failed to fulfill” its mission of “protecting our country’s leaders.” Chettle has served as director of the U.S. Secret Service since August 2022. The Associated Press believes that her departure does not mean the end of various investigations. As the Democratic Party of the United States is about to hold its national convention in Chicago to select nominees to represent the Democratic Party in the presidential election, and the presidential election campaigns of the two parties in the United States are gradually heating up, the tasks and challenges of the Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the safety of relevant candidates, will increase significantly. The two parties in the U.S. Congress have stated that they will continue to investigate the security loopholes of the Secret Service. In addition, an independent and bipartisan investigation initiated by the Office of the Attorney General and President Joe Biden will also continue. Chettle made the decision to resign one day after attending a hearing on the attempted assassination in the U.S. Congress on Monday and testifying at the hearing. “We failed,” Chettle said when testifying in Congress. “As director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security breaches in our agency. “I will do everything in my power to ensure that an incident like July 13th never happens again,” she added. But Chettle refused to resign at the time and stressed that she was still the “right person” to lead the Secret Service. She also angered lawmakers by repeatedly refusing to answer questions from lawmakers from both parties, citing an ongoing internal investigation. When Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace suggested that she start drafting a resignation letter, she plausibly replied, “No, thank you!” It was particularly incredible that the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was able to climb onto the roof of a house just 135 meters away from the stage where Trump was delivering his speech, and calmly opened fire after Trump began his speech. Chettle admitted on Monday that someone had told the Secret Service two to five times that there was a suspicious person nearby before the killer opened fire; and that the roof where the killer shot had been identified as a potential security risk a few days ago. But she refused to answer many questions related to the incident, including why the Secret Service did not send anyone to guard the roof. That roof problem. Chettle served in the Secret Service for a total of 27 years. She left the Secret Service in 2021 to serve as the security director of a private company, but President Biden invited her back to serve as the director of the Secret Service in 2022. The United States Secret Service is affiliated with the United States Department of Homeland Security and currently has about 7,800 Secret Service agents and other employees. When Biden appointed Chettle as the director of the Secret Service, he said that Chettle was his and his wife’s security guard when he was the vice president of the United States, and that he and his wife “grew to trust her judgment and advice.”