Former Attorney General Bill Barr said he thinks Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle should be fired for the way she has handled the fallout from the Saturday assassination attempt against former President Trump.
“I would fire her simply for having a tin ear and not coming out and being visible and saying something. Even if we don’t know the story, I think it’s still important to start the discussion and the transparency with the American people,” Barr told Fox News’s Jesse Watters, when asked in a Sunday interview whether he would fire Cheatle.
Barr criticized the Secret Service for only briefing the public on security procedures in Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention will be held this week, rather than address the entire situation head on.
“The way they handled today, by trying to just brief Milwaukee and not saying anything about it was so ham-handed that I would fire just for not understanding how the responsibility of government officials to interact with the public,” he said.
Barr’s interview came a day after Trump was shot in his ear by alleged gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was subsequently shot and killed by Secret Service agents. The incident took place at a campaign event in Pennsylvania, with Trump’s ear bloodied before he was ushered offstage by security officials.
The shooting marked one of the most significant security failures of the Secret Service since former President Reagan was shot in 1981.
The FBI said Sunday that the gunman appears to have acted alone and that there was no known ideological motive behind the attempting killing. Authorities are investigating the incident as a “potential” domestic terrorism act.
Barr, in the Sunday interview, said he thinks the FBI should be “given a chance” to conduct the investigation, when prompted to say whether he trusts “this FBI to do a clean investigation.”
“I think they should be given the chance to do the investigation,” Barr said. “But I think Congress will be watching every step and do their own investigation. And I think there’s a lot to investigate.”
Calls for investigations of the agency have mounted in the days since the shooting. Members of Congress have pledged to launch their own probes and to hold at least one hearing about the rally.
Biden announced on Sunday that he ordered an independent review of the security at the rally and called for cooler heads to prevail following the shocking event.
Cheatle pledged Monday to “participate fully” in the independent review.