Assassination attempts are, thankfully, rare in the United States. On July 13, 2024, former President Donald Trump joined the short list of American presidents who walked away.

Ronald Reagan famously insisted on walking himself into the hospital after being shot in 1981. Teddy Roosevelt went on to give a campaign speech after taking a round in the chest from a .38 special. While numerous other presidents have been the subject of plots to harm them, few dodged the proverbial (and literal) bullet so closely as Trump.

The assassination attempt came as Trump was giving a speech at an outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One of the eight shots fired by the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, pierced Trump’s ear when he turned his head to look at a chart.

While the investigation is still ongoing, a congressional hearing held on July 22 revealed several startling new details about what took place in Butler.

Secret Service agents quickly shielded the former president, while a sniper located and killed Crooks within 10 seconds of him firing the first shot. The former president was rushed to safety by his security detail, but not before pausing to wave his fist in defiance. Despite Trump’s close call, others weren’t so lucky. Corey Comperatore died while protecting his wife and daughters from the gunfire. David Dutch and James Copenhaver were both critically wounded but are now in stable condition.

Crooks appears to have taken the shot from atop a building that was less than 150 meters away from where the former president was speaking. For reference, 150 meters is the distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training. 

The fact that Crooks was able to make it atop the building has become a major point of contention between the Secret Service management and local law enforcement. In an interview with ABC News on July 15, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle pointed to the fact that local law enforcement was responsible for security on the aforementioned building, causing CNN to claim that the Secret Service was now “at odds” with local law enforcement. Patrick Yoes, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, pushed back on the idea that the incident might cause distrust between the Secret Service and the thousands of local law enforcement agencies they often turn to for assistance.

“Whatever happened in Butler, this was not a failure of the local, state or federal officers on the ground who responded to the shots fired at former President Trump,” Yoes said. “They acted heroically and put their lives on the line to protect everyone at the event, and we must recognize that. This is a failure at the management or command level for not securing an obvious weakness in the security of this event.”

While the investigation is still ongoing, a congressional hearing held on July 22 revealed several startling new details about what took place in Butler. While testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Cheatle admitted that local law enforcement had sent multiple messages to the Secret Service on the day of the shooting about a suspicious man, later identified as Crooks. Additionally, Cheatle said that Pennsylvania authorities observed and photographed Crooks 18 minutes before Trump took the stage. 

The admission caused bipartisan outrage among lawmakers, who failed to receive an answer from Cheatle about how someone with a rifle was able to get within firing range of the former president — on a rooftop uncovered by the Secret Service, no less.

“I am here today because I want to answer questions,” Cheatle said before being cut off by Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “I don’t think you’ve answered one question from the chairman, the ranking member or me,” Jordan said.

Throughout the testimony, Cheatle remained mostly tight-lipped when pressed for specifics on the number and types of agents assigned to protect Trump at the rally and how the Secret Service has handled earlier requests for additional security staff from the campaign.

“I didn’t see any daylight between the members of the two parties today at the hearing in terms of our bafflement and outrage about the shocking operational failures that led to this disaster,” said Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the committee’s ranking member. “What’s depressing is the extraordinary communications gap between the director of the Secret Service and Congress. I will be joining [Republican Committee Chair James Comer Jr.] in calling for the resignation of the director just because I think that this relationship is irretrievable at this point. And I think that the director has lost the confidence of Congress at a very urgent and tender moment in the history of the country, and we need to very quickly move beyond this.”

On July 23, Cheatle accepted the calls for resignation and stepped down as the director of the Secret Service. “I take full responsibility for the security lapse,” she said in an email to staff. “In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.” 

Following Cheatle’s resignation, Comer promised there would be more investigation of the security gaps leading up to the assassination attempt. “While Director Cheatle’s resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full accounting of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward,” he said in a statement.