Secret Service Director Calls Trump Shooting 'Most Significant Operational Failure' | TMZ Live
Kimberly Cheatle is in the middle of testifying before the House Oversight Committee -- and right from the outset, she took full responsibility for the near-death of the ex-Prez ... saying the agency failed in its duty to protect DT.
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00:00So, Kimberly Cheadle, the director of the Secret Service, is being grilled like a cheeseburger
00:06on-
00:07We should say, as of right now, as we're doing this, she is the director of the Secret Service.
00:10That's right.
00:11Good point, Charles.
00:12Correct.
00:13She is being skewered by members of Congress who are asking a lot of tough questions about
00:21the security lapses that even she calls one of the great security failures in the last
00:27decades.
00:28Yeah.
00:29And she could not avoid that, admitted it right off the bat.
00:34And then the grilling started.
00:36And this is, we're about to play one of the very telling questions that came from Congressman
00:40Jamie Raskin.
00:41And he is asking about the fact that, as we've reported, that the shooter was identified
00:48by law enforcement long before former President Trump got on stage.
00:54Listen to her answer here.
00:56This is very telling.
00:57It's been reported that before former President Trump got up on the stage at around 6 p.m.
01:05on Saturday, July 13th, that the local police had identified and even photographed a man
01:10who was acting suspiciously.
01:12And this man, who turned out to be the gunman, had been flagged as a potential threat.
01:17Is that accurate?
01:20What I can say is that the individual was identified as suspicious.
01:25Why was he allowed to take the stage with a suspicious person having been identified
01:30in the crowd?
01:31If the detail had been past information that there was a threat, the detail would never
01:37have brought the former president out onto stage.
01:40That is what we do.
01:41And that is who we are.
01:42We are charged with protecting all of our protectees.
01:46So you distinguish between someone who is suspicious and someone who's threatening?
01:50Is that right?
01:51We do.
01:52Well, Jamie Raskin and Donald Trump agree on almost nothing.
01:55But it seems on this point they do agree.
01:58Donald Trump was on Fox News and he felt the same way that Jamie Raskin appears to feel.
02:06No one told you not to take the stage?
02:09Nobody mentioned it.
02:10Nobody said there was a problem.
02:12And I would have waited for 15.
02:13They could have said, let's wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes, something.
02:18Nobody said, I think that was a mistake.
02:20How did somebody get on that roof and why wasn't he reported?
02:24Because people saw that he was on the roof.
02:25And that was quite a bit before I walked onto the stage.
02:29So you would have thought somebody would have done something about it.
02:32Well, that is one of many questions that Chito is being asked.