U.S. Secret Service deputy director tapped as acting chief

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Deputy Director of the U.S. Secret Service Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. was tapped on Tuesday to serve as the agency's acting chief, following Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation amid mounting pressure.

"I have appointed United States Secret Service Deputy Director Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. to serve as acting director of the Secret Service," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

The statement noted that Rowe, a 24-year "veteran" of the Secret Service, has been the agency's deputy director since April 2023.

"I appreciate his willingness to lead the Secret Service at this incredibly challenging moment, as the agency works to get to the bottom of exactly what happened on July 13 and cooperate with ongoing investigations and congressional oversight," said Mayorkas.

Rowe's appointment came just a few hours after Cheatle's resignation, which followed a congressional hearing the day before, when Cheatle acknowledged that it was "the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades."

During the hearing held by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, lawmakers from both parties grilled Cheatle about the "egregious security lapses" that led to the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.

"Director Cheatle could not or refused to answer basic questions from committee members, leading Republican and Democrat members to call for Director Cheatle's immediate resignation," the committee said in a statement.

The U.S. Secret Service has been facing scrutiny after a 20-year-old man, identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as Thomas Matthew Crooks, armed with an AR-style rifle, was able to get close enough to shoot and injure the former president.

The attack marked the first shooting of a U.S. former president or major party presidential candidate since the 1981 attempted assassination of Republican President Ronald Reagan.