Senator Roger Wicker is calling on the head of the U.S. Secret Service to resign following the assassination attempt on former U.S. president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.
The Republican lawmaker who calls Mississippi home criticized Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle for her demeanor following the shooting that Trump narrowly survived, per ballistics experts.
“The American people are still trying to make sense of the shocking assassination attempt on President Trump. A security failure of that magnitude demands honest answers and swift accountability,” Wicker said in a press release. “Unfortunately, the Director of the Secret Service has not been properly forthcoming about the events leading up to the crisis in Pennsylvania.”
According to Wicker, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cheatle as well as other federal security leaders have been evading lawmakers’ inquiries about the events that ultimately led up to 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opening fire on the former commander-in-chief before being killed by a counter-sniper.
The senator said that when he and colleagues were briefed on the events leading up to the assassination attempt, security leaders only fielded a few questions and shut down the briefing rather quickly.
“The rest of our questions must be answered. Straightforward explanations of what went wrong would help fill in gaps in our understanding of the tragedy. Proper accountability would also help,” Wicker added. “For the Secret Service to begin repairing trust with the public, its director must resign. Despite the obvious breakdown in protection, she has refused to step down.”
It has since come to light that law enforcement had eyes on the shooter, who climbed atop a building roughly 130 yards away from the stage Trump was speaking from at the Butler, Pa. rally, roughly an hour before shots were fired. Posts circulated on social media of rallygoers pointing Crooks out to law enforcement at the scene. Reports have even surfaced that a policeman climbed atop the building, just to take cover after Crooks allegedly pointed his weapon at the officer.
Amid all the latest updates from what was nearly a successful political assassination, Wicker questions why Trump wasn’t rushed off stage before the gunfire rang out.
“Agents on the stage should have been alerted and should have escorted President Trump to protection. It took the gunman seconds to fire eight shots,” Wicker noted. “Compared to that moment of terror, the officials’ hour of awareness looks like a lifetime.”
Wicker compared the shooting, which claimed the life of beloved fireman Corey Comperatore, as “the biggest Secret Service failure” since the attempt at former President Ronald Reagan’s life in 1981. The senator is continuing to call for congressional action in the wake of the fatal shooting and for Cheatle to resign from her post — a call that parrots requests from other Republican lawmakers.
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