Secret Service Boss Cheatle Faces House Grilling As DHS Forms Panel To Review Trump Shooting
In a move seemingly timed to ease the immediate pressure on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday night announced the formation of an independent review panel charged with examining the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which appeared to illuminate an astonishing degree of Secret Service incompetence.
The unusual Sunday night announcement came about 12 hours before Cheatle's 10 am Monday appearance before the House Oversight Committee, which Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has touted as "must-watch TV," telling CNN, "She's got a lot to answer for. And those concerns are bipartisan." Underscoring that notion, Oversight Committee member and Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle has already demanded that Cheatle resign, via a statement released Saturday:
"The evidence coming to light has shown unacceptable operational failures. I have no confidence in the leadership of the United States Secret Service if Director Cheatle chooses to remain in her position.
The creation of the panel will give Cheatle a flimsy shield she can use to try deflecting Monday's pointed questions about the Secret Service's damning actions and inactions surrounding the July 13 shooting at Trump's rally that wounded Trump and two spectators and killed a third.
“We are committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on July 13," said Mayorkas. "This independent review will examine what happened and provide actionable recommendations to ensure they carry out their no-fail mission most effectively and to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”
In his Sunday night statement, Mayorkas also made the deeply dubious assertion that the Secret Service is "the greatest protective service in the world." The victims and surviving family members of the shooting at Trump's rally would likely quarrel with that poorly-timed chest-thumping. It's also wildly inappropriate given the panel he just appointed should be at least theoretically free to reach an entirely different conclusion.
