Rep. Jared Moskowitz on Monday grilled the director of the Secret Service during a hearing into the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, pointing to the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting as an example of proper accountability.
When it was Moskowitz’s turn to ask questions at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Monday, he harshly criticized Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, saying she should resign or be fired by President Joe Biden.
Ultimately, Moskowitz predicted, Cheatle will lose his job.
Moskowitz said he was upset that Cheatle had not promised to fire those working security at Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, after an investigation into the incident was completed, when a gunman, who was later killed by a sniper, opened fire on Trump.
The lawmaker compared it to how then-Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel handled the 2018 Stoneman Douglas shooting, which left 17 people dead and 17 injured.
“The school resource officer, or police officer, did not run into the building,” Moskowitz said during the hearing. “He hid in the stairwell while the perpetrator was inside the building. He was outside. He did not render assistance. He instructed other officers who arrived on scene not to enter the building. After it was discovered that there had been a failure of response and training, and that the sheriff had not fired anyone in the department, Governor DeSantis fired the sheriff. I supported that firing.”
Moskowitz, a Democrat who represents parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, is a graduate of Stoneman Douglas High School. He was a state representative representing northwest Broward on the day of the massacre. He was later hired by DeSantis to run the state’s Office of Emergency Management.
“So my question is,” Moskowitz continued, “you said you’ll provide accountability. I know you don’t want to name names, but are you saying to the committee, once the investigation is over, that you’re prepared to fire the people on the ground who made the wrong decisions that day?”
Cheatle: “We are prepared to take any action necessary.”
Moskowitz: “That’s nonsense. It’s about accountability. Failure is human. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It means they failed that day. And the president, the former president, was almost assassinated. Are you prepared to pursue human failure on the ground? Yes and no.”
“If you can see where people failed, it wasn’t the technology that failed, it was the people that failed that day. Are you prepared to fire them?”
Cheatle: “I can’t answer that question.” (Mr. Moskowitz interrupts her.)
Moskowitz: “So how can you be accountable if you’re not prepared to fire somebody? And the reason your name is being held accountable is because members of this committee are calling for your resignation, and I join them, and are calling on the president to fire you, because you say you’re going to be accountable, but you can’t promise to fire people.”
During the hearing, Moskowitz did not name Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Peterson, who serves as a school resource officer.
After the Parkland shooting, Peterson resigned from the sheriff’s office rather than be fired. He was found not guilty of criminal charges of child abuse, negligence and perjury by a Broward County jury. His lawyers argued that Peterson did not know where the bullets came from, and they were successful.
Moskowitz wasn’t alone at Monday’s Secret Service hearing. Cheatle was grilled for hours by lawmakers from both parties, including Rep. Nancy Mace, who told the secretary she was “a liar.”
Shortly after Trump began speaking at the rally, suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed to the roof of a nearby building and opened fire with an AR-type rifle, wounding Trump in the ear, killing a former Pennsylvania fire chief and injuring two other attendees.
Cheatle acknowledged that the Secret Service had been notified of suspicious activity two to five times before the shooting, and that the rooftop where Crooks shot had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally. Cheatle said he apologized to Trump in a phone call after the shooting.
“The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed,” Cheatle said.
Moskowitz also asked Cheatle if he had watched the controversial hearings earlier this year in which Ivy League university presidents were questioned by members of Congress about anti-Semitism and pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses. University leaders’ response was widely criticized and led to two being forced out of their jobs within weeks.
Moskowitz told Cheatle that her response at the hearing that day would likely spell the same fate for her.
“They’re gone. This is where it is. This is where it’s going to be,” he said. “The idea that we’re getting less information than what (people) are getting on television is hard for Democrats, independents and Republicans to accept.”
Mokowicz’s position was in line with that of the committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who has frequently railed against and undermined each other on personal and policy grounds.
Comer called on Cheatle to resign at the start of the hearing on Monday, and the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, also called for Cheatle to step down, saying he had “lost the confidence of Congress.”
This report includes information from Sun-Sentinel archives and The Associated Press.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
First published: July 22, 2024, 3:27 PM
