The director of the Secret Service was grilled by House members and urged to resign Monday following the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump earlier this month.

Her responses clearly did not engender confidence in lawmakers. In a letter published after the hearing, the top Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee urged Kimberly Cheatle to resign.

"Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures," Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the panel's chairman, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, its top Democrat, wrote.

"In the middle of a presidential election, the Committee and the American people demand serious institutional accountability and transparency that you are not providing," they added. "We call on you to resign as Director as a first step to allowing new leadership to swiftly address this crisis and rebuild the trust of a truly concerned Congress and the American people."

During Monday's hearing, Cheatle acknowledged her agency failed in protecting Trump but has refused to step down.

“The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders. On July 13, we failed,” she told the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. “I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency.”

She added that “we must learn what happened” and vowed to “move heaven and earth” to ensure an incident like it never happens again.

Cheatle said she wanted to be transparent with the committee, but she regularly frustrated members by not answering their questions, often citing ongoing investigations.

“It looks like you won't answer some pretty basic questions,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told Cheatle. “It looks like you got a 9% raise and you cut corners when it came to protecting one of the most important individuals, most well-known individuals on the planet, a former president, likely the guy who’s going to be the next president.”

On July 13, a 20-year-old man perched on a nearby warehouse rooftop fired several shots at Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, striking the former president in the right ear. One rallygoer was killed, and two others were wounded. The gunman was fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper.

Several investigations have been launched into the attack. In addition to congressional inquiries, the FBI is conducting a criminal probe and the Secret Service is performing an internal investigation, Cheatle said. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has launched two inquiries, one into the Service Service’s process for protecting Trump at the rally and the other into the Counter Sniper Team’s preparedness. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also has appointed a bipartisan, independent panel of law enforcement and security experts to examine how the shooting was able to happen.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the Oversight Committee’s chairman, said the Secret Service “has now become the face of incompetence.”

“Americans demand accountability, but no one is yet to be fired to this historic failure,” he said. “ … It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign.”

The calls for Cheatle to lose her job came from members of both parties. 

“You look incompetent,” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Cheatle. “If Donald Trump had been killed, you would have looked culpable. … Not only should you resign, if you refuse to do so, President Biden needs to fire you because his life, Donald Trump's life and all the other people which you protect are at risk.”

“I just don’t think this is partisan,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. “If you have an assassination attempt on a president, a former president or a candidate, you need to resign.”

Cheatle told legislators she believes she’s the best person to run the agency at this time.

The Secret Service acknowledged this weekend it denied some requests by Trump’s campaign for increased security at his events years before the attempt on his life. Immediately after the shooting, the agency had denied rejecting such requests. 

Cheatle said Monday the Secret Service provided all assets that were requested for July 13. 

Jordan pressed Cheatle on the inconsistent statements coming out of her agency on past Trump security requests. 

“They asked for additional help in some form or another," Jordan said. “You told them no. How many times did you tell them no?”

Cheatle said the agency can sometimes address the threat or risk concerns that prompted a request through “alternate ways,” such as additional personnel or technology.

Asked by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, why Trump was able to take the stage after state police reported a suspicious person in the crowd, Cheatle said he had not been deemed a threat at that point because, to the best of her knowledge, no one knew then he had a weapon.

Later, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., questioned Cheatle on why the rally was not immediately paused after the crowd notified police the gunman was on the roof. He opened fire two minutes later, according to reports. 

“That doesn't look like suspicious behavior,” Krishnamoorthi said. “That looks like threatening behavior to me, and the rally wasn't paused at that point, either.”

Krishnamoorthi also argued that the Secret Service left Trump vulnerable by declaring the rooftop — 410 feet from the stage and well within the range of a semiautomatic rifle — outside the security perimeter.

“I respectfully submit the Secret Service must expand its security perimeter to account for the kinds of weapons that can be used outside the perimeter to endanger the protectees inside the perimeter,” he said.

Democrats on the committee joined with Republicans in condemning political violence and praising Secret Service agents who quickly stepped in to protect Trump. But several Democrats also tried to steer the conversation to guns. 

“What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a double failure: the failure by the Secret Service to properly protect former President Trump and the failure of Congress to properly protect our people from criminal gun violence,” Raskin said. “We must, therefore, also ask hard questions about whether our laws are making it too easy for potential assassins to obtain firearms generally and the AR-15 specifically.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., repeatedly asked Cheatle whether “the ubiquity of guns” make her agency’s job more difficult. She refused to answer the question directly, instead saying “it’s the environment that the Secret Service works in every day.”

Her response angered Connolly.

“I'm asking a simple analysis, Director Cheatle,” Connolly said. “And I can tell you, you're not making my job easier in terms of assessing your qualification for continuing on as director.”