Despite mounting pressure for her to step down, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle remains resolute in her commitment to oversee the investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to ABC News sources within her staff.
Cheatle has reportedly dismissed calls for her resignation, including those from a contingent of Republican senators. Following a briefing to lawmakers on the ongoing investigation, conducted jointly with FBI Director Christopher Wray, Cheatle faced direct confrontation from four GOP senators at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Despite this encounter, she continues to lead the Secret Service’s security operations for the convention.
Cheatle joined the Secret Service shortly after graduating college in 1992. Her nearly three-decade career provided her with unique insights into historical events. After a brief stretch as head of global security for PepsiCo, Cheatle returned to lead the agency in 2022.
At 53, Cheatle was relatively unknown to the public before Saturday’s incident, which left Trump with a minor ear injury and resulted in the death of an audience member. Her initial public appearances have been challenging. In an interview with ABC News, Cheatle accepted ultimate responsibility for the security failure at the Butler, Pa., event.
As a young agent, Cheatle was part of Vice President Dick Cheney’s security detail during the September 11, 2001 attacks, working at the White House amid fears of an imminent strike on Washington. Later, she served on Vice President Joe Biden’s protective team, where she developed a strong working relationship with Jill Biden through her professional competence and personable nature.
The NY Post on Saturday offered a few anecdotes that could explain, perhaps, why Cheatle’s agency did not measure up to the task of protecting one of the two most important persons in the country.
Rep. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) told The Post last Friday: “Both the Obama and Biden administrations have populated federal departments and agencies with bureaucrats more concerned with DEI than carrying out their organizations’ mission. As a result, it is not unreasonable to assume Director Cheatle has taken the same approach with the Secret Service. The spectacular security failure that almost resulted in the assassination of President Trump would indicate that is exactly what has happened.”
WOKE ME UP
Cheatle has unabashedly embraced woke initiatives at the agency ever since she took over, including recruiting at Pride events, hosting seminars on pronoun use, and using a popular YouTube female daredevil Michelle Khare to attract a more diverse workforce. She hosted a seminar on the “respectful use of pronouns” during the agency’s annual “Unity Day.” Her spokesperson explained that the “pronoun” seminar was meant “to try and educate the workforce … because some of this stuff, you know, is cutting-edge and new, and people just may not be familiar with it.”
Apparently, there were fewer seminars under Cheatle to discuss what to do when a young man with an Ar-15 rifle is lying on a rooftop across from a GOP presidential candidate.
Cheatle wrote her underlings at the Secret Service: “We must embrace diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) across the agency. DEIA must be demonstrated by all employees – leading by example – through ‘every action every day.’”
She told CBS News a year ago: “I’m very conscious as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women.” Indeed, she wanted females to be 30% of agency recruits by 2030.
Cheatle will testify before the House Oversight Committee on Monday. Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky) said last Friday, “Americans demand answers from Director Kimberly Cheatle about the Secret Service’s historic security failures that led to the attempted assassination of President Trump, murder of an innocent victim, and harm to others in the crowd.”
Finally, on Saturday, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) called on Cheatle to resign, the first Congressional Democrat to make the demand, but probably not the last.
Boyle tweeted: “I am calling on Director Cheatle to resign immediately following last weekend’s shooting of a Presidential candidate in Western Pennsylvania. The evidence coming to light has shown unacceptable operational failures. I have no confidence in the leadership of the United States Secret Service if Director Cheatle chooses to remain in her position.”
Could she be made head of the Federal Agency of Pronouns, at least until January 20, 2025?
