MILWAUKEE >> Republican senators, including a member of the Senate’s leadership, accosted the director of the Secret Service in a suite at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, demanding that she resign or provide a full explanation for the security lapses that led to the near-miss assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-ranking Senate Republican, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee aggressively confronted the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. A staff member for one of the senators videotaped the confrontation and sent it to a reporter.

The video, which Blackburn also posted on social media, shows Barrasso berating Cheatle over why Trump was allowed to go onstage for his Saturday evening rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when authorities had already identified as suspicious a man who turned out to be the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks.

“You put him within less than an inch of his life,” Barrasso said to Cheatle, almost yelling. “So resignation or full explanation.”

Cheatle declined to answer their questions and instead walked out of the suite. Barrasso and Blackburn followed her down a corridor inside the arena and up a flight of stairs, continuing to yell questions at her and telling her she owed them answers.

Cheatle is in Milwaukee as the senior security official at the event. The Republican National Convention is a “national special security event,” the highest threat profile given by the federal government, because of its size and scope. Both Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, are under Secret Service protection.

In a joint interview after the encounter, Barrasso and Blackburn said they had been on a briefing call with Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray earlier Wednesday. The senators complained that they had been waiting in the queue for questions when the call ended and said the briefing had been inadequate.

“We were trying to get to the root of what had happened, how the shooter was on the roof by himself and able to get off the shots,” Barrasso said. He dismissed the briefing as a “cover-your-ass call.”

Both senators said that when they heard that Cheatle was in the arena, they decided to confront her. Barrasso said that they were joined by Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, did not directly respond to questions about the incident. But he issued a statement saying that “continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident” and that Cheatle “has no intentions to step down.”

“She deeply respects members of Congress,” Guglielmi continued, “and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews.”

Interviewed inside the convention arena, Barrasso said that he and Blackburn only gave up their pursuit of Cheatle after she fled into a restroom. “She ran up a flight of steps, and we were up with her,” he said. “And it looked like she then went into a ladies’ room and her own security closed the door and blocked the door.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.