The second senior member to depart the US Secret Service as it struggles with the fallout from July's near-assassination of Donald Trump is retiring this week. The person is in charge of protecting elected leaders, foreign dignitaries, and high-profile events.
According to someone aware with his plans, Michael Plati, an assistant director at the Secret Service, has been talking to his family about retiring for more than a year. He is departing the organization on the occasion of his 27th anniversary of employment.
A spokesman for the Secret Service said that Plati had made his "personal decision" and refuted a media report claiming that the agency's top brass had urged him to resign.
"Nobody asked Assistant Director Plati to retire or resign," the representative told CNN in a statement. "We thank him for his 27 years of dedicated service to the federal government, and this was a personal decision."
The agency is under more scrutiny and has a busier campaign schedule in the run-up to the 2024 election, which is why the news of Plati's resignation has surfaced.
Legislators are still pressing the agency to hold people accountable for the security shortcomings that led to the assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign event, which resulted in Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation in July.
The Secret Service's acting director, Ronald Rowe, has stated multiple times that he will not make personnel choices over that day's shortcomings until the findings of internal investigations into the incident are in.
One member of Trump's security detail and other Secret Service agents from the Pittsburgh Field Office who assisted with the preliminary arrangements for the July 13 event have been moved to administrative roles and told to work from home.
