A Republican senator who confronted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told DailyMail.com that she tried to run from him when he asked her about Donald Trump‘s near assassination while refusing to answer basic questions.
After 20-year-old Thomas Crooks shot former President Donald Trump and killed former firefighter Corey Comperatore at a campaign rally on Saturday, Cheatle has been called on to resign and multiple investigations into the matter have been announced.
On a call Wednesday with Cheatle, FBI Director Christopher Wray and lawmakers, officials revealed Trump’s protective detail spotted the shooter 20 minutes before he opened fire.
On that call, Cheatle refused to respond to questions about why Trump was allowed to take the stage.
Taking matters into their own hands on Wednesday, a group of senators including Cramer cornered Cheatle at the convention in a luxury suite.
She then ‘took off’ running once they started demanding answers, the senator disclosed.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., who confronted Cheatle said she ‘took off’ when he tried to press her on why the Secret Service allowed Donald Trump to take the stage at his Butler campaign rally when they knew there was a ‘suspicious’ person of interest roaming free
‘They locked us out of asking questions about the moment, why Donald Trump was allowed to go on the stage after a threat had been identified,’ Cramer said of the call.
‘So there she was, walking into a suite, and there are a number of us standing around, and we got and said, you know, we should go talk to her,’ the Republican told DailyMail.com.
‘So we walk in to ask her that question, and instead of answering it … she said we need to do this somewhere else.’
‘We said, ‘Great, let’s go.’ So she starts leaving. Except she wasn’t leaving to meet with us. She was leaving to run from us. She took off.’
He said the interaction exuded disrespect to not only the lawmakers but to the country and the world.
The North Dakotan insisted that she has an obligation to clarify immediately what happened at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, but instead she seems more focused on ‘covering her backside.’
Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee chased the Secret service chief through the conference hall after she refused to answer their questions
The chase continued up a flight of stairs and only ended when Cheatle locked herself into a bathroom and her own Security Service staff barred the pursuing senators
Video of the interaction shows Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and James Lankford of Oklahoma also joined Cramer in demanding answers from Cheatle Wednesday.
‘This is exactly what you were doing on the call,’ Cramer could be heard claiming in the clip.
‘Stonewalling,’ Barrasso yelled at Cheatle as she walked away from him.
‘You put him within less than an inch of his life,’ Barrasso said. ‘So resignation or full explanation.’
Blackburn demanded of the Secret Service director: ‘This was an assassination attempt, you owe the people answers, you owe President Trump answers.’
Images show Cheatle walking with what appears to be a security escort who shepherded her through the contentious confrontation.
‘I don’t think this is the forum to have this discussion,’ Cheatle told the lawmakers.
‘This hospitality suite, it’s actually to thank the partners who have helped secure the Republican National Convention. And I would not want to take away from their evening.’
Cheatle has been under growing pressure since it emerged that her agents were repeatedly warned about would-be assassin Thomas Crooks as he prepared to shoot the president at Saturday’s campaign rally.
Instead of placing her snipers on the roof of the American Glass Research Building in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Crooks fired from, she made the decision to secure the building from the inside.
‘That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point,’ she said in an interview explaining her rationale for not deploying agents to the top of the building.
‘And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof.’
‘The decision was made to secure the building, from inside,’ she added.
Speaking to ABC News Cheatle bizarrely claimed that Secret Service snipers were not placed on the roof that Thomas Crooks used in his assassination attempt on Donald Trump because it was ‘too sloped’
Thanks to Cheatle’s decision, Crooks managed to evade cops and Secret Service three times, even though he had been deemed ‘suspicious’ and could have been on the roof for up to 30 minutes before he pulled the trigger.
Witnesses also begged law enforcement to act when they saw him clamber onto the roof with his AR-style rifle, but the lapse in security meant he was able to carry out his bid to take the 45th president’s life.
The Secret Service director is expected to testify before Congress about the shooting on Monday.
