Secret Service Chief resigns following Trump assassination attempt

The Director of the US Secret Service, resigned the day after a heated House hearing during which members of both parties demanded that she step down in the wake of Donald Trump’s assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

The attempt on Trump’s life was deemed the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades by Cheatle, the agency's director since August 2022.

She had admitted full responsibility for the security failings to legislators during a hearing where Republicans and Democrats engaged in a rare show of cooperation.

However, it has been reported that, she also infuriated her interrogators by refusing to respond to several pointed questions concerning the precise investigations into its malfunction.

The 20-year-old gunman who attempted to assassinate Trump seems to have easily evaded every security measure surrounding the former US President and was able to open fire from a roof close to the platform where Trump was speaking.

The attack occurred even though he was observed by bystanders at the rally and encountering law enforcement.

Despite failing, the assassination attempt left Trump and two other rally attendees injured and one dead.

It came amid widespread predictions of a spike in political violence during an extremely volatile election campaign, which agitated American politics and stunned political watchers on all sides.