The Director of the US Secret Service resigned

The director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, announced her resignation on Tuesday, following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Cheatle spent hours testifying before lawmakers at the Capitol on Monday, receiving questioning from members of both parties about the agency’s failure to prevent the attempt on Trump’s life.

Cheatle said, “the Secret Service failed to protect Trump on July 13, the day his life was almost over”.

“As director of the US Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security flaw in our agency,” she added.

“We’ve to learn from this experience and I will work hard to ensure that an incident like July 13 isn’t repeated again… Our clients, officers and support personnel understand that our mission requires us to be willing to sacrifice our lives every day to achieve it”.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, has called for Cheatle’s resignation, backed by a number of Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Among those calling for her resignation was Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California, who said, “If a president, former president or candidate is subjected to an assassination attempt, you must resign”.

It’s worth mentioning, that the US Secret Service was founded by President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the day he was assassinated, and considered one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies in the United States.

After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, it’s duties expanded to include the protection of presidents.

The apparatus provides protection to the president and vice president, former presidents and their families, presidential candidates, and visiting heads of state, and after the September 11 attacks, the agency assumed responsibility for security in gatherings and non-political activities that may be targets of terrorism.