Secret Service director clarifies comments on responsibility for securing Trump rally

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle clarified her comments about responsibility for securing the rally where former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated after she appeared to delegate responsibility to local police.

The shooting at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killed one attendee, Corey Comperatore, 50, and injured Trump and two other attendees. Cheatle told CNN on Tuesday that the Secret Service was “solely responsible” for securing the area where Trump spoke.

“At that particular site, we divided up areas of responsibility, but the Secret Service is totally responsible for the design and implementation and the execution of the site,” Cheatle said.

Cheatle also clarified comments she made to ABC News where she claimed local law enforcement “were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building” where the shooter took aim from. When speaking with CNN, Cheatle said she had tried to say the Secret Service was working alongside local police.

“What I was trying to stress was that we just divided up areas of responsibility, and they provided support to those areas of responsibility,” Cheatle told CNN.

She pushed back on claims that the security perimeter was too small but did say the agency will take lessons from the attempted assassination.

“What happened is a terrible incident and should never happen,” Cheatle said. “And we are obviously going to make sure move forward we take whatever any lessons that come out of this and adjust accordingly.”

Cheatle has said the agency will cooperate with the independent investigation ordered by President Joe Biden into the security failings, along with any congressional investigations.

Trump made his first public appearance since the incident Monday during the first night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and again appeared on the second night of the convention Tuesday. He had a bandage covering his right ear, which had been grazed in the shooting.