Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said that she had "no idea" how her opening statement on the Trump rally shooting for the House Oversight Committee hearing got leaked to the media, prompting Republican Representative Nancy Mace to term her response to be "bulls***".
The South Carolina lawmaker directed Cheatle to answer yes or no to a series of questions on the Secret Service's response to the assassination bid to the former US president Donald Trump, during a rally in Pennsylvania. Cheatle said, "yes" to it being a "colossal failure", adding that it was a tragedy that could have been prevented.
"Would you say leaking your opening statement to Punchbowl News, Politico's Playbook and Washington Post several hours before you sent it to this committee as being political? Yes or no?" Mace asked Cheatle during the hearing, Fox News reported.
Cheatle said, "I have no idea how my statement got out," to which Mace responded saying, "Well, that's bulls***".
Mace had reportedly mentioned the news articles, about three to four hours before she had said the House Oversight Committee got Cheatle's statement.
The Republican Representative also asked the Secret Service Director as to whether she has provided all the audio and video recordings in the agency's possession to the committee.
"I would have to get back to you," Cheatle responded.
Reacting to her response, Mace told Cheatle, "That is a no. You're full of s*** today. You're just being completely dishonest."
Soon after, a call for maintaining decorum inside the hearing room at the Capitol Hill's Rayburn House Office was sounded.
"These are important questions that the American people want answers to. And you're just dodging and talking around it in generalities. And we had to subpoena you to be here. And you won't even answer the questions. We have asked you repeatedly to answer our questions. This isn't hard. These are not hard questions," Mace told Cheatle.
At the Trump rally shooting hearing, lawmakers of both major political parties demanded that Cheatle resign from the post of Secret Service's Diector over the security failures that let a gunman to scale a roof and open fire at a campaign rally.
Cheatle was grilled for hours by both the Democrats and Republicans at the hearing, angered by repeated evading of questions about the probe into the July 13 assassination attempt, The Associated Press said.
Cheatle herself said that it was the agency's "most significant operational failure" in decades and promised to "move heaven and earth" to get to the bottom of what went wrong and make sure that this doesn't happen again.
"The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders. On July 13, we failed," she told the House Oversight Committee.
The Secret Service Director also said that she had apologised to former President Donald Trump over a phone call after the assassination bid.
However, even while taking full responsibility for the lapses in security, Cheatle asserted that she was the "right person" to lead the Secret Service.
Republican chairman -- Representative James Comer -- and the Committee's top Democrat -- Representative Jamie Raskin -- issued a letter calling for Cheatle's resignation.
Notably, the White House hasn't commented on whether President Joe Biden has confidence in Cheatle after her testimony.
