NEW: Secret Service Director Breaks Silence, REFUSES To Step Down Despite Admitting Shocking Mistakes

United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is rebuffing a chorus of calls for her resignation following the near-fatal assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump despite declaring “the buck stops with me” when it comes to the agency’s failures on Saturday.

Cheatle’s assertion came during an extended interview with ABC News immediately following the fallout from Saturday’s Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania where a 20-year-old man was able to fire eight rounds at President Trump and supporters on stage before he was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper rifleman. Later reports confirmed that local officers were warned about the presence of Thomas Crooks on a rooftop about 400 feet away more than a minute before the bloodshed began.

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“I’m being told that the shooter was actually identified as a potential person of suspicion. Units started responding to seek that individual out,” Cheatle told ABC News, according to Fox News. “Unfortunately, with the rapid succession of how things unfolded, by the time that individual was eventually located, they were on the rooftop and were able to fire off at the former president.”

Cheatle, who was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, accepted responsibility for the Secret Service’s failure to secure the perimeter of the rally, allowing Crooks to have a direct line of sight to the former president.

“The buck stops with me,” Cheatle said, adding, “This is an event that should have never happened.” She told ABC that her first reaction to the shooting was “shock.”

The same reaction may have occurred for several Secret Service agents in President Trump’s detail. Conservatives online have alleged that multiple female Secret Service members were ill-prepared to respond to the unfolding crisis and singled out one who appeared unable to holster her service weapon while Trump was loaded into a waiting SUV.

Cheatle explained that a decision was made to not place an agent on the roof where Crooks found his vantage due to a sloping surface. “That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside,” she said.

Cheatle also appeared to place the blame on local law enforcement for not securing the perimeter, according to a clip of her interview circulating online. “In this particular instance, we did share support for that particular site and that the USSS was responsible for the inner perimeter,” Cheatle said. “And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter. There was local police in that building, there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.”

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GOP lawmakers have promised a fresh round of investigations into the security lapses, assuring that Cheatle will have to appear before a select committee to further explain her decision-making for that day. The Hill reported on Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) pledge to conduct a “full investigation.”

“The American people deserve to know the truth. We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP,” Johnson wrote on X.

A spokesman for the Secret Service denied a recent report that agents were pulled off Trump’s detail just days earlier to enhance protection efforts around First Lady Dr. Jill Biden.

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