Florida Congress member calls for perjury, inherent contempt charges after Secret Service director testifies

Listen:

UPDATE: Kimberly Cheatle announced her resignation the day after this story was published

US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle faced intense questioning Monday from Congress over Trump’s assassination attempt. 

Now one Florida congress member is calling for charges of inherent contempt and perjury against the director.

Cheatle called the incident at a Trump rally earlier this month a failure.  

“The assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump on July 13th is the most significant operational failure of the Secret Service in decades.” 

Members of the US House Oversight Committee questioned Cheatle. 

Including Congress member Anna Paulina Luna, who represents parts of Pinellas County, Florida. 

She says Cheatle refused to answer some questions. 

And the director claimed no knowledge of suspicions about the shooter in a group text chain between law enforcement.

“I think that she perjured herself, and I told her that, and I requested a full transcript review, and for her to be brought up on perjury charges.”

During the hearing, Cheatle did acknowledge the agency was informed of a suspicious person “between two and five times” before the assassination attempt of the former president.

In addition, Luna says the director was “terrible” during the hearing. 

“Actually there’s been multiple calls bipartisan for her to resign. And as a result of that, I think to expedite her resignation, I’m thinking about bringing an inherent contempt vote to the floor.”

This would be Luna’s second attempt at bringing a similar vote to the U-S House floor this month. 

Just over a week ago, Luna was unsuccessful in getting a resolution passed to hold U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt.