Kimberly Cheatle, the embattled head of the Secret Service, has revealed the fateful and bizarre reason her agency failed to put an agent on the roof that gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks used to attempt an assassination on Donald Trump.
Cheatle, who is being forced to resign amid the massive security breaches, said Secret Service officials handling security for Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, considered the warehouse 440 feet (135 meters) from where Trump spoke a risky position to station an agent.
New, chilling details have revealed that a team of local police snipers was inside the building when the 20-year-old Crooks opened fire, shooting Trump in the ear and killing a member of the protest crowd.
The crooks managed to evade police and the Secret Service three times, despite him being considered a “suspicious” person and possibly having been on the roof for 30 minutes before pulling the trigger.
Witnesses also pleaded with police to intervene when they saw him climb onto the roof with his AR rifle, but the lack of security allowed him to carry out his attempt to end the 45th president’s life.
The mistakes that nearly killed Trump led to calls for Cheatle to resign, but she has refused and has now offered a baffling explanation for why no one was on the roof who could clearly see Trump.
Secret Service official Kimberly Cheatle has come forward in her first interview since the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, and she says a sloped roof is the reason the building is secured from the inside.
“That building in particular has a sloped roof at the highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be taken into consideration, we wouldn’t want to put someone on a sloped roof,” she told ABC News in an interview Tuesday.
‘And so it was decided to secure the building from the inside.’
What happened instead was a security nightmare: Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to scale the building and secure his own position, while police struggled to find him, even amid urgent warnings from Trump supporters. But there wasn’t enough time to act on the tips, she explained.
“The shooter was actually identified as a potential suspect,” Cheatle said. “Unfortunately, given the rapid pace of events, by the time the individual was eventually located, he was already on the roof and was able to fire at the former president.”
She pointed to claims from witnesses that they alerted police to the threat, but officers were unable to eliminate it in time. Officials have pointed to the first responding officer, who pulled himself up onto the roof and then lowered himself when his own life was threatened.
A government sniper standing behind Trump as he spoke took out the would-be assassin, but only after he began shooting.
Cheatle told ABC News her initial reaction to the shooting was “shock.”
She also said the Secret Service was aware of the security gaps in the building where Crooks took up a sniper position to target Trump. However, the decision was made not to place personnel on the roof, even though security experts have said a primary law enforcement responsibility would be to secure elevated areas near a high-ranking protected person.
She continues to resist calls to resign over the incident, even as she takes responsibility for her agency.
“The responsibility lies with me,” she said. said.
“It was unacceptable,” she told ABC. “And it can’t happen again.”
Cheatle is already facing calls to resign amid what some are calling a “massive security failure”
Former FBI agent Kenneth Gray told DailyMail.com on Monday that the Secret Service “really made a mistake” at Saturday’s meeting and that efforts to hire more women for field positions may have played a role.
Republican officials gathering in Milwaukee called for tighter scrutiny of the agency as the federal government implements stricter security measures for Trump and others protected.
“Somebody, somewhere, really needs to answer a lot of serious questions,” Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, a member of the House Judiciary and Armaments Committee, told DailyMail.com.
Cheatle’s decision to avoid questions so far has also been surprising. She did not attend the first FBI-led news conference.
The investigation launched by President Joe Biden after the incident is being led by the Justice Department, not Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.
“That speaks volumes,” Jason Chaffetz, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told DailyMail.com.
President Biden was asked by NBC on Monday whether he has confidence in the Secret Service.
“I feel safe with the Secret Service. But look … what we did see was the Secret Service responding by risking their lives. They were willing to lay down their lives for the president. The question is, should they have anticipated what was happening? Should they have done what they had to do to prevent this from happening? That’s the question that’s open.”
He did not immediately respond when NBC’s Lester Holt asked him whether the agency was dealing with a “massive security lapse.”
Republicans preparing to question Cheatle have already focused on her own background. Before being confirmed by President Biden in 2022, she worked for PepsiCo as a senior director in global security. She spent 25 years at the agency and in the Vice Presidential Protective Division.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Ky.) called her a “diversity asset” on Fox News.
“You know she was at Pepsi before that. I know she was a former CIA Secret Service agent, but still, this is what happens when you don’t put the best players in,” he said.
Cheatle joined the agency, which had been plagued by a series of scandals.
“Somebody really dropped the ball. You have a DEI person, a DEI initiator, leading our Secret Service,” he said, using the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion.
On Monday evening, it was revealed that a local police sniper team had spotted Crooks scouting their command post three times in the minutes before the shooting began.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, seen here in a 2021 photo, was identified by the FBI as the gunman involved in the assassination attempt
Three Beaver County police officers used the one-story AGR International building as their lookout when the would-be killer chose it as his shooting spot. CBS reported.
A law enforcement official told the station that no action was taken after one of the snipers first spotted Crooks looking up at the roof of the building in Butler, Pennsylvania, just 400 feet (120 meters) from where the president was scheduled to speak.
The sniper then radioed a command post after seeing Crooks pull out a rangefinder.
But no further action was taken until Crooks appeared a third time, this time carrying a backpack and disappearing from view as he walked toward the back of the building.
The sniper team radioed the information, but failed to realize that Crooks had now scaled their building.
Bullets fired from the roof of a factory building (right) into the protest (seen left) show how close Crooks came to the former president
A chance turn of Trump’s head, not the quick reaction of those snipers, was what made the difference between a sneer at the bullet Crooks fired and a fatal shot
Eight members of the Beaver County Police Department were tasked with securing the outer perimeter of the rally, while the Secret Service focused on the rally itself.
WPXI in Pittsburgh reported that a Beaver officer took a photo after seeing Crooks on the roof at 5:45 p.m. By that time, he had already been photographed by a colleague on the ground.
The last radio report from the three-man sniper team prompted state police to send reinforcements to the building. But it wasn’t until 6:11 p.m. that someone climbed onto the roof and saw Crooks with his rifle.
The Butler County officer was forced to retreat as Crooks pointed his AR-style weapon at him. Seconds later, the killer fired eight shots, killing Pennsylvania Fire Chief Corey Comperatore, critically wounding two others and hitting Trump in the right ear.
It is unclear whether Crooks had the rifle with him when he was first seen outside the AGR International factory building, or whether he remained on the roof the entire time.
Extraordinary photos and video, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, show how breathtakingly close Crooks came to his goal.
Crooks, 20, came close to killing President Trump on Saturday when the former president addressed supporters at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Chillingly, some of the photos show a ladder leaning against the side of the AGR building, hidden by thick undergrowth. The ladder leads directly to the roof, which witnesses later told police they saw Crooks clambering over.
The images of the strategically placed ladder have emerged after the Secret Service admitted it did not clear the building where the shooter was located, instead entrusting that task to local police officers.
This compelling footage highlights the few feet – barely 135 yards – that stood between the former president and his intended assassin.
Crooks parked his vehicle near the rally site in Butler on Saturday before climbing onto the roof of a nearby industrial manufacturing building.
