America's Talking - Cheatle Resigned After Two Articles of Impeachment Were Filed Against Her

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

Two articles of impeachment were filed against U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle just before she resigned Tuesday over security failures at the Pennsylvania campaign event where former President Donald Trump was shot. A Florida congresswoman asked for criminal charges to be brought against her, and two Republicans, Greg Steube, R-Florida, and Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, took actions for her to be impeached. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire service. We are recording this on Friday, July 26th. U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheedle resigned her position Tuesday over security failures that contributed to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump's life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Republicans and even many Democrats were called. calling for her ouster over widespread criticism of the security plan and its execution. Joining me to discuss this is Casey Harper. The center scores Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief.

Casey, what are your top takeaways? Yeah, I mean, this was inevitable. I think it was kind of amazing to me that the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheathel, thought that she could evade resignation when there was such concern and so many failings of the Secret Service and the general security detail. on that Saturday in Pennsylvania when Trump narrowly survived an assassination. You know, what really was the final nail on the coffin was an oversight committee hearing that was, you know, heavily attended and viewed and scrutinized earlier this week where it was kind of amazing, Dan, I covered the hearing.

And Cheadle was asked very direct, very specific questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers. And after, you know, the first couple of lawmakers. from both sides of the aisle, the ranking member Raskin and the oversight chair, James Comer, of Kentucky. After they asked their questions, it became clear that Cheatel was not going to answer hardly any questions directly or specifically. Even the most basic questions, she was evading them and kept saying that we're only nine days out from the shooting and there's an investigation going on. And, you know, I would direct you to the FBI who's conducting a criminal investigation

And it was kind of like, why did you even come to this hearing if you weren't going to answer any questions? Now, I know partially why she came is because oversight committee threatened to subpoena her. So that'll motivate you. And I think she thought that if she could appear before Congress, maybe it would just make some of these concerns go away. But I think she did not expect, Dan, the bipartisan nature of her criticism. And we were talking everything from conservative Texas members to the most liberal Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. of New York, both just blasting Cheetah, talking, you know, left and right, talking about her resignation, asking why she let resign. And I think part of the reason they were so hard on her was

because she wasn't answering questions. She wasn't answering questions about the slope, you know, why officers weren't on the sloped roof, about whether the shooter used to drone, about all kinds of basic things. And I think that was particularly frustrating because so many of these things, stands have been reported in the media. I mean, Cheadle herself gave interview to ABC, where she was seemingly more forthright than she was with members of Congress. And so all that combined, it was her ouster. Of course, they'll try to replace her. But it was a bad day for the Secret Service. And another federal kind of law enforcement related, not law enforcement directly, but law enforcement adjacent agency that I think has lost a lot of trust from the American people. Yeah, the U.S.

Secret Service falls under the Department of Homeland Security, which has been criticized under the Biden administration for its border security efforts, or should I say lack of border security efforts. More than 12 million foreign nationals have illegally entered the country under the Biden administration. Cheedle has resigned. Another question out there is, why didn't President Joe Biden or Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas not fire her much sooner. That didn't happen. She resigned, but Republicans in the House at least say this is not over just because she's resigned. Many Republicans are calling for Mayorkas, her boss essentially to resign also. Of course, the Republican-controlled

house impeached Mayorkas earlier this year over the border crisis. Where do you think the accountability is going to stop. Do you think this ends it or what happens next? Yeah, I hate to disappoint the Republicans here, but I think they're not going to get much more than a report from the Secret Service and another investigation. But, you know, I think that Cheeto leaving is going to mostly put out this fire. They're going to lose a lot of the Democratic angst. And Democrats are going to move on to other issues.

It's an election year. So a lot of the oxygen in the room. is going to be taken out. And it's just not going to be the main focus. As for Mayorkas, I think his days are a number, but not because Republicans are upset with him. Because Biden's on his way out, I definitely doubt that Harris is going to keep Mayorkas on. She's going to be looking for any fall guy she can blame for the disaster at the southern border because right now she is taking criticism for being in charge of the southern border and how bad it's gone. She's trying to say she wasn't in charge. So I think she'll be happy to shift the blame to Mayorkas, whoever else it needs to be

shifted to. So Mayorkas is on his way out. But, you know, Republicans have been trying to get rid of him for a long time and have not succeeded. And he only has a few months left in the Biden administration. I think he'll probably just ride it out or maybe he'll leave early for some kind of cushy lobbying job as people in administrations that are sinking ships tend to do. But I don't think we're going to get much more accountability. Oversight Republicans often get very excited. They do these reports and investigations, but even when those information, that information comes out, getting it to lead to something substantive after the head of Secret Service has resigned, I think is a little bit of wishful thinking. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the report that comes out

will be so explosive, so much negligence that there will be action. But right now, I don't think it's likely. One last question for you, Casey. We're almost out of time. The Democratic National Convention is next month in Chicago. We've been talking about and expecting for months massive protests over the Israeli Hamas war, over environmental issues, over abortion rights, things like that. Secret Service in the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, are all responsible for security there. Any concerns? Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a reason to be concerned. I think, especially with this, what the violent nature we've seen from these pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protesters,

especially in, you know, D.C. or I'm based out of when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to speak and addressed Congress, of course, in the middle of that war that's going on in Gaza right now. The protests were, it was reminiscent of the kind of the BLM riots of 2020. I mean, flag burning, vandalizing U.S. monuments actually took down the American flag and rose up the Palestinian flags. And now that Harris has condemned them for that, I think, you know, I think they're just going to be even more incensed and angry because Harris, I think there was some hope among that wing of the Democratic Party that Harris would be more amenable to the cause than Biden was. And I think she probably personally is, is my read on it. But she can't get behind

flag burning and run for president. And so she had to condemn them publicly. I think they're going to be more upset. And those are the people who have eye on. But of course, there's always radicals. There's always, you know, lone gunmen and things that I'm sure the FBI and others are looking into. And we wish them well and hope they're successful in keeping that convention safe. Thank you for joining us today. Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.