The woman who runs the Secret Service must answer for Trump assassination attempt

07/16/2024 01:51
The woman who runs the Secret Service must answer for Trump assassination attempt

Some critics are blaming Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle and other women at the agency for the Trump assassination attempt.

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Internal politics get heated at Angel City FC, Tubi CEO Anjali Sud on her rapid rise to the C-suite, and the woman who leads the Secret Service is now in the hot seat. Have a thoughtful Monday.

– At your service. Before this weekend, did you know who was running the Secret Service? Her name is Kimberly Cheatle. She’s a longtime veteran of the agency and a former PepsiCo security exec who got the job almost two years ago, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to her official bio, she’s “responsible for successfully executing the agency’s integrated mission of protection and investigations by leading a diverse workforce composed of more than 7,800” special agents and other personnel.

Of course, Cheatle is now in the political hot seat following the shooting of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, which left two people dead (including the gunman) and two seriously wounded. The assassination attempt has raised questions about how the shooter got so close to succeeding; the building where he set up was outside the Secret Service’s perimeter and would have been the responsibility of local law enforcement.

Kimberly Cheatle, director of the United States Secret Service.

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP—Getty Images

President Joe Biden called for an “independent review” of the event’s security measures. Cheatle has been asked to testify at a Congressional hearing next week. The Secret Service did not immediately return a request for comment.

Cheatle worked with the Bidens during Biden’s vice presidency. She took over the Secret Service following another scandal: its preparedness for the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

She isn’t the only woman in the Secret Service coming under fire. Some critics on the right are blaming the agency’s reported “DEI” push to hire more women for Saturday’s shooting and are singling out women on Trump’s security team for alleged missteps. “DEI got someone killed,” is how one inflammatory X post put it.

As only the second woman to run the Secret Service, Cheatle will have to answer for all of it; she’ll be at the center of the storm as the investigation into the Trump assassination attempt continues.

Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]

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PARTING WORDS

“The best example that I can continue to set for other people with cancer, and to the outside world who doesn’t have cancer is to show them what a cancer patient looks like. We are employable.”

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