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The scrutiny toward the US Secret Service, headed by Director Kimberly Cheatle, comes following a fatal shooting at a Trump Rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13 that left one man dead and two others in critical condition. Trump himself was also injured in the shooting, suffering a wound to his ear.
In an interview with ABC News on Monday, July 15, Cheatle, who served as senior director of global security for Purchase-headquartered PepsiCo from 2019 to 2022, called the shooting "unacceptable," the outlet reported.
Cheatle also said she was "shocked and concerned" for Trump and the Secret Service agents at the rally, according to the outlet.
Since the shooting, Cheatle and the Secret Service have dealt with criticism for not stopping the attack before it happened, including calls for Cheatle's resignation, the outlet reported.
Despite this, the outlet added that Cheatle refuses to step down: "The buck stops with me. I am the director of the Secret Service, and I need to make sure that we are performing a review and that we are giving resources to our personnel as necessary," she said during the interview.
Cheatle also told the outlet that there was a short period of time between when the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was identified and when he fired shots at Trump.
She added that the "Secret Service is not political...Security is not political. People's safety is not political. And that's what we're focused on as an agency."
Click here to read the full report from ABC News.
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