Kimberly Cheatle’s sudden resignation today as director of the U.S. Secret Service after days of defiance doesn’t change the need for clarity, according to former CIA station chief Scott Uehlinger. He has concerns about loose ends that don’t add up – and he's is not alone in calling for an investigation. “I am extremely skeptical,” he said.
Director Cheatle (right) has been the center of focus since former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped death on July 13 when an assassin’s bullet sliced his ear from inexplicably close range at an outdoor event in Butler, Pennsylvania. (See image above)
On Monday, Democrats and Republicans in rare bipartisanship demanded answers from a basically nonresponsive Cheatle, whose rise to guarding the leader of the free world, it appears, was influenced by a commitment to DEI hiring practices and her own connections.
“What’s extremely sad and frustrating about the more we allegedly know, the more questions we have about what's going on. Things are not passing the sniff test, so to speak,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) said on American Family Radio Tuesday.
“To not have every answer after nine days is understandable. To not have any answers after nine days is unforgivable,” Cloud told show host Jenna Ellis.
Investigations take time. Cheatle could have expedited the process but did not, and Americans need answers now, the Texas lawmaker said.
“President Trump is going to be traveling around the country. He’s going to be holding events. We’re in a campaign season where both candidates are going to be running around speaking to people. We need to be getting answers and making adjustments immediately,” he said.
Search for answers should continue
Cheatle’s sudden departure need not create a reset, Uehlinger told Ellis. He questioned the sincerity of Democrats blasting away at the now former director, saying the motivation, for some, could be simply moving ahead in the news cycle.
“A deeper investigation is what’s appropriate here,” Uehlinger said.
There are many questions for Uehlinger, some of them far beyond Cheatle’s performance. For example: What motivated a young man with a limited social circle and limited online activity?
“We have an FBI that is famous for provoking, basically setting up people for terrorist plots. This has been going on at least 20 years in the FBI. That needs to be investigated,” Uehlinger said.
Likewise for reports of short calls involving stock in Trump-owned companies.
“There was something like $900 million of short calls that were put in on Friday before the assassination attempt in a very unusual stock move, almost as if somebody had advanced knowledge of what was going to happen,” Uehlinger said.
But the biggest red flag for Uehlinger is Cheatle’s unwillingness to provide tapes of Secret Service communications from that day. “I don’t know all the communications,” she told lawmakers. “We are still combing through communications and when communications were passed.”
The ex-CIA chief responds: “My immediate reaction is, Okay, you don't have them for a reason because you deliberately got rid of them. Now, maybe 20 years ago or 30 years ago, I would have a different opinion.”
Instead, his perception has been sharpened by his years in the field.
Soviet-like handling of information?
“I remember as a kid laughing at the Soviet Union when Chernenko and Andropov were some of the last general secretaries of the Soviet Union. Their death was covered up or delayed. They were like, ‘Oh, he's in good health. He's pretty good,’ but there's no film of him. I remember watching speculation of whether the guy was really alive. Well, now we're living the exact same thing, except it's an American president,” Uehlinger said.
“I was a CIA officer overseas, recruiting foreigners and observing foreign political events for my entire career. A good station chief is looking at all of the data and trying to find the patterns. There’s a fair amount of data out there, and I am not going to go into the default position of believing at this point what the Biden administration or the Harris administration or the Obama administration is telling me,” Uehlinger said.
