Trump assassination bid ‘was biggest secret service failure in decades’

THE director of the Secret Service says the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump was the agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades.

Director Kimberly Cheatle told a congressional hearing: “On July 13, we failed.”

In the first hearing over the shooting at Mr Trump’s Pennsylvania rally earlier this month, Ms Cheatle said she took “fully responsibility” for the security lapses, and she vowed to “move heaven and earth” to make sure there’s no repeat of it.

“I accept responsibility for this tragedy,” Ms Cheatle said. “We are going to look into how this happened, and we are going to take corrective action to ensure that it never happens again.” Ms Cheatle was testifying before a congressional committee as calls mount for her to resign over security failures at the rally where a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate the Republican former president.

The House Oversight Committee heard Ms Cheatle’s first appearance before politicians since the July 13 Pennsylvania rally shooting that left one spectator dead. Mr Trump was wounded in the ear and two other attendees were injured after Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed the roof of a nearby building and opened fire.

Politicians have expressed anger over how the gunman could get so close to the Republican presidential nominee when he was supposed to be carefully guarded.

The Secret Service has acknowledged it denied some requests by Mr Trump’s campaign for increased security at his events in the years before the assassination attempt.

Before the incident, local law enforcement had noticed Crooks around the edges of the rally, peering into the lens of a rangefinder toward rooftops behind the stage where the president later stood. An image of Crooks was circulated by officers outside the security perimeter. Witnesses later saw him climb up the side of building 135m from the stage.