CNN
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In an interview with CNN’s Whitney Wilde on Tuesday night, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said the agency was “solely responsible” for the implementation and enforcement of security at the venue for former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally on Saturday.
Cheatle added that despite there being other events in the state on Saturday that required police protection, no police assets were diverted from the rally that day.
“For that particular site, we have divided up the areas of responsibility, but the Secret Service is entirely responsible for the design, implementation and execution of the site,” she told CNN.
In an interview with ABC News, Cheatle previously said local police were responsible for the shooting on Saturday at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, climbed onto a roof and opened fire on Trump.
“The point I was trying to make is we just divided areas of responsibility and they supported those areas of responsibility,” Cheatle said of local police, adding that the department “cannot do its job without them.”
While the full rollout was completed that day, the director said, “If there are any changes we need to make to our policies, procedures or methods, we certainly will.”
Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle watches a press conference at the Secret Service’s Chicago field office on June 4.
Cheatle did not provide specifics on where the USSS might make adjustments, saying the agency was waiting on its own internal investigation and findings, as well as an external investigation.
The director of the Secret Service has faced a barrage of questions about how the shooter had a clear view of Trump at the rally, and some lawmakers, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, have called for his resignation.
Asked by Wilde if the boundaries around the gathering were too narrow, Cheatle replied: “We went as far as we needed to go to ensure the safety of the event that we hosted on that day.”
“What happened was a terrible incident and should never have happened,” she added, “and we will of course take the lessons learned from this incident and adapt and move forward accordingly.”
CNN reported on Tuesday that the US had received intelligence about an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump, but the shooter did not appear to be involved. Asked whether the Secret Service had stepped up security for the former president as a result, the secretary said, “We have been working on that for several months, up until that day.”
But Cheatle did not say whether all the factors in the former president’s case had been strengthened in light of the Iranian threat.
Cheatle said he had spoken to “several staff members” who were working on the day of the rally, adding that he planned to speak to the rest who he had not yet spoken to.
“Obviously, these are difficult conversations. Nobody who works in the Secret Service wants to have a day like this,” she said. “We did a great job. The people who protected and evacuated the president that day, the counter-sniper officers, did a great job. I’m very proud of the actions they took.”
