U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation after the agency came under harsh scrutiny for its failure to stop a would-be assassin of Donald Trump was "overdue," House Speaker Mike Johnson told a press conference Tuesday.
Johnson was glad Cheatle "did the right thing" but stressed that "she should have done this at least a week ago."
"I'm happy to see that she has heeded the call of both Republicans and Democrats," he continued. "Now we have to pick up the pieces. We have to rebuild the American people's faith and trust in the Secret Service as an agency, it has an incredibly important responsibility.
"We've got a lot of work to do."
Johnson added, "the task force that we'll be putting together is going to be very important," noting it will have three responsibilities: to investigate what happened, to hold those accountable, in addition to Cheatle, and "finally to ensure that those mistakes do not happen again."
"The stakes are too high," Johnson said. "It is a very dangerous time and we need the Secret Service to be performing at the top of their game, and we will ensure that will happen."
"I hope that the interim director will be very sober-minded about the responsibility," Johnson concluded, "and we will do everything we can in the House to make sure that is true, and I think that our task force's work just got even more important."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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