'Too Woke, Guarding Bags of Cheetos': Trump Shooting Brings Bad Press for Secret Service Chief Kimberly Cheatle

It was clearly not a good weekend for Kimberly A Cheatle. The Director of Secret Service is in the eye of the storm after a gunman armed with an AR-style rifle was able to get close enough to shoot and injure former President Donald Trump at a rally Saturday in Pennsylvania, in a devastating failure of one of the agency’s core duties.

The gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was killed by Secret Service personnel after he fired multiple shots at the stage from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue,” the agency said.

The roof used by the gunman for the attack was fewer than 150 meters (164 yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which US Army recruits must hit a human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training.

Apart from this, experts speaking to CNN-News18 also flagged as questionable the decision of the Secret Service to not deploy ballistic briefcase shields or bullet-proof the area near the podium.

It’s all these questions that have pushed Cheatle into the limelight as voices calling for her resignation grow.

Who is Kimberly Cheatle?

The 27th Director of the US Secret Service, Cheatle assumed office on September 17, 2022. She is responsible for leading the 7,800 Special Agents, Uniformed Division Officers, Technical Law Enforcement Officers and Administrative personnel.

Cheatle has worked for the federal government for 27 years, holding several positions within the Secret Service.

Prior to her appointment as the Secret Service director, she served as the Senior Director in Global Security with PepsiCo, where she was responsible for security protocols for the company’s facilities in North America, according to the agency’s website.

For her exceptional performance, she received The Woman in Federal Law Enforcement Public Service Award and the Presidential Rank Award. Her name was also featured in the list of 2022 women in security by the Security magazine.

The second woman to lead the Secret Service (Julia Pierson being the first), Cheatle did her BA from the Eastern Illinois University.

In the Dock

A Republican Party-led House of Representatives panel has now called upon the Director of the Secret Service to testify on July 22. Chairman James Comer of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability sent a letter to Cheatle requesting her voluntary appearance at a full Committee hearing.

Among the most vocal voices asking Cheatle to step down was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who took pot-shots at her credentials. “So before being in charge of protecting the President, she was guarding bags of Cheetos …,” Musk wrote on X, formally known as Twitter.

Speaking to The New York Post, two former high-ranking FBI officials slammed the protocol of the Secret Service under Cheatle after the attack. “It was a total security breakdown from start to finish,” said former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker.

Criticising some of the protection detail around former President Trump after he was shot, Swecker told The Post: “I am not anti-woman. I have three daughters and three granddaughters, and they’d make great Secret Service agents. But the women I saw up there with the president — they looked like they were running in circles. One didn’t know how to holster, the other one didn’t seem to know what to do, and another one seemed not to be able to find her holster.”

Netizens, too, demanded Cheatle’s removal, with many criticising her “focus on diversity”.

“Director Kimberley Cheatle of the @SecretService must resign in disgrace. This is what diversity hires get you!,” a user posted on social networking site X.

“Director of Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle said she’s aiming to make the Secret Service more diverse and hire more women. This female agent couldn’t even holster her gun today during the attempted ass*ss*nat*on of Trump,” another said, uploading a video on X that showed female agents struggling after the attack.

Cheatle has been facing flak for her attempts to advocate diversity in the Secret Service and in the security industry in general.

In a CBS News interview in 2023, Cheatle addressed some of the issues in the Secret Service and said that diversity would be a major priority. CBS noted that Cheatle was committed to having the Secret Service be 30% made up of women by 2030.

As a part of that effort to increase the number of women, she suggested that YouTube influencer Michelle Khare train with agents.

A petition was started online earlier to look into Cheatle’s “woke beliefs” and accused her of “misusing her position to perpetuate prohibited personnel practices in recruitment, selection, assignment, promotion, and disciplinary action based on demographics rather than merit”.