Speaker Johnson calls on Biden to fire Kimberly Cheatle

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called on President Biden to fire Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in light of security failures related to the assassination attempt on former President Trump over the weekend.

“I’m prepared this morning to call on President Biden to — to fire — Director Cheatle,” Johnson said on Fox Business Thursday morning.

Johnson’s call to fire Cheatle comes a day after he said she should resign, though he acknowledged that Cheatle said she will not step down.

“But the oversight here, the mistakes, the ineptitude, whatever it is, was inexcusable. We almost lost the life of a former president. And I think there has to be accountability and it begins at the top. This is ridiculous,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he will call Biden to ask him to fire Cheatle but added that the president, currently isolating with COVID-19, “doesn’t take my calls all the time.”

Johnson talked about an unclassified briefing call Wednesday for House members by Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray about the assassination attempt.

“They did not give satisfactory answers to some very important questions. And some of it needs to be in a classified setting, I suppose,” Johnson said.

In a Senate briefing on the matter just before the House one, briefers said that the 20-year-old suspected shooter — who left Trump with an injured ear and one rally attendee dead — had been flagged as suspicious by the Secret Service more than an hour before he fired.

A classified briefing for House members is in the works for next week, according to a source familiar with the plans.

Johnson is also promising a bipartisan task force with subpoena authority to investigate the assassination attempt.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on Wednesday subpoenaed Cheatle to compel her appearance at a July 22 hearing, saying that the subpoena was necessary due to worries she would back out of the appearance.

The Department of Homeland Security said in response that Cheatle would appear, but proposed some dates later in the week or the following week. But an Oversight panel spokesperson indicated the July 22 hearing will proceed.

Cheatle is taking increasingly more heat from Republicans and mounting calls to resign.

On Wednesday evening, that spilled into a tense face-to-face confrontation at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, with GOP Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.) and Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) following Cheatle and asking her more questions, saying they were unsatisfied by the briefing earlier in the day.

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