'Go Back To Guarding Doritos': Pat Fallon Absolutely Torches Secret Service Director Cheatle

3 months ago

At a House Oversight Committee hearing on Monday, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) questioned Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

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Transcript

00:00Allen from Texas. How did a 20-year-old loner with a week's notice pick the absolute best

00:07location to assassinate President Trump when the entire Secret Service missed it? Director

00:12Chito, in your leadership, your agency got outsmarted and outmaneuvered by a 20-year-old.

00:16How can we have any confidence that you could stop a trained professionals

00:19from a nefarious nation state? Those are absolutely questions that we need to have.

00:26I know they're questions, but you know the fact of the matter is we can't have that confidence.

00:30Director, do you have the ability personally, do you have the authority to beef up security

00:33of any of your protectees? Yes, I do. Okay, so were you also aware there was a credible threat

00:40President Trump was facing? He was facing a heightened security threat to a foreign adversary?

00:46Yes. Okay, so given that there was an increased threat to President Trump's life,

00:50was he provided a full security complement akin to what a sitting U.S. president would receive?

00:56He was provided a full complement of security based on the threat assessment that we had.

01:03That's not my question. My question is if he'd been the sitting president, would he have had

01:07the same security he had on July 13th or would have been beefed up? There is a difference between

01:12the sitting president. So your answer is he didn't. And continuity of government and the

01:16responsibility. So he did not. Okay, there wasn't a CAT team, a full CAT team on site, there wasn't

01:21counter-surveillance teams on site. But this is the thing, you just said you had the ability to

01:26beef up the security, you knew about the threat, and you didn't. And that's as telling as it is

01:32chilling. We have satellite images from the Butler Fairgrounds. Have you visited the site?

01:38No, I have not. Nine days and you have not visited the site. You should have been there that night.

01:43Did you talk to, that evening, did you talk to the team, the heroes that surrounded the president?

01:48Did you call them that night? They were still operational working. So that's it,

01:52the answer is no. Did you call them the next day? Yes, I spoke with them. You called them the very

01:56next day, not the day of. Or was it 72 hours after? I don't know the timeline, but I spoke

02:01with them immediately following. Okay, because you're under oath. I think it was 72 hours after you waited three days.

02:05What is immediately clear is that there are a number of structures that need to be secured.

02:09Of these, Director, other than the first, you know, immediate four, what's the most dangerous site

02:14that should have been secured? Because you know, security 101, you got to mitigate the high ground.

02:18Yes. Okay, do you know what the next most dangerous site, what was the closest structure to the

02:25president, other than the four immediate ones that you had your counter-sniper teams on? There are a

02:30number of structures around that event site. You know who the shooter knew? The shooter has visited

02:36the site two more times than you have, and he had a drone and he picked the AGR building. So you said,

02:42do you remember in an ABC interview you did that you didn't have people on the roof of the AGR

02:46building because you were worried about safety because of the slope? I recall that statement.

02:53Does the Secret Service have written policy you can share with us about slope roofs?

02:59No. Okay, so why'd you act like there was one? Because isn't your practice to comment on enormous

03:05events of enormous national implications when you're ignorant of the facts?

03:10That's rhetorical. So here's the thing with the slopes. You go all the way up to like 1812,

03:15you can get to 112, which is about as flat as you can get without it being completely flat,

03:21and you're saying that there was a danger, a safety concern there, but the problem is,

03:25Director, you put your counter-snipers on a 312 roof, which is steeper than the 112. And by the

03:30way, the 112 is ADA compliant. You can build a ramp for a wheelchair on a 112 roof. So these are

03:39nothing but pathetic excuses, and they make no sense, and they're a bunch of cow dung. All the

03:44law enforcement I've spoken with over the last nine days are amazed that the AGR rooftop was

03:49not secure. You want to know why? Because it's dangerous. I have never had any long gun training

03:54in my life. I own an AR-15, and last time I shot it, I shot it one time my whole life. It was six

04:00years ago. That is until Saturday, where we recreated the events in Savoy, Texas. We recreated

04:05what happened in Butler. I was lying prone on a slope roof at 130 yards at 630 at night,

04:11and I knew that he had a scope, but I didn't know what kind, red dot, or magnified. So I shot eight

04:15rounds from both. You know what the result was? 15 out of 16 kill shots, and the one I missed would

04:21have hit the president's ear. That's a 94% success rate, and that shooter was a better shot than me.

04:29It is a miracle President Trump wasn't killed.

04:33Corey compared Torrey's life is over because that damn shooter made it on the roof, and it

04:37wasn't the roof that was dangerous. It was a nut job on top of the roof. You know what else is

04:41dangerous? I believe your horrifying ineptitude and your lack of skilled leadership is a disgrace.

04:46Your obfuscating today is shameful, and you should be fired immediately and go back to

04:51Garden Doritos. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Chair recognizes Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania.

04:58Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the chair, the ranking member, for coming together and holding

'Go Back To Guarding Doritos': Pat Fallon Absolutely Torches Secret Service Director Cheatle

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