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A high-ranking Secret Service official with more than 26 years of federal law experience will retire from the agency, months after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life.
Michael Plati, the Assistant Director of the Office of Protective Operations, is a member of the Senior Executive Service. He leads operational divisions that reduce risks at protected events or to protectees. That includes leading the teams in charge of planning for the protection of Trump, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and more.
Plati had been considering retiring from his position in the agency for months. He will officially retire later this week on his 27th work anniversary, Greg Henning, a spokesman for Plati told The Independent.
“Mike has been discussing this with his family for more than a year,” Henning said. “He approached Acting [Secret Service] Director [Ronald Rowe] about his retirement last month, before the Democratic National Convention.”
The timing of his retirement, in concurrence with the July 13 shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania is coincidental.
Preliminary investigations into the shooting have suggested that the Secret Service failed to take precautions before the former president appeared on stage at his rally. As a result, a gunman opened fire, killing one rallygoer and injuring others, including the former president.
The agency and its leaders have been under intense scrutiny since the shooting. Amid calls to step down, the former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned.
But Henning, as well as a spokesperson for the Secret Service, said Plati’s decision to retire was unrelated to the fallout from the shooting.
“Assistant Director Plati was not asked to resign or retire by anyone,” a spokesperson for the Secret Service told The Independent on Tuesday. “This was a personal decision that he has made and we thank him for his 27 years of dedicated service to the federal government.”
Leaders in Congress will continue to investigate the Secret Service’s protocols and decisions leading up to the Trump assassination attempt. The former director and acting director of the Secret Service have testified to Congress and more may be asked to do so.
“The U.S. Secret Service respects the role of oversight. We have and will continue to make employees available for transcribed interviews and to date we’ve provided over 2,400 pages of responsive documentation to Congress. These efforts will continue as our desire to learn from this failure and ensure that it never happens again is unwavering,” a spokesperson for the agency said.
