When Thomas Matthew Crooks shot President Trump in the face about a year ago (July 13, 2024 to be exact), the Secret Service was headed by a 50-something woman named Kimberly Cheatle. The story of Kimberly Cheatle is a warning tale about the dangers of letting woke ideology and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) override merit. If there’s one organization in the United States that should be merit based, it’s the Secret Service. Also the armed forces. And anyone in aeronautics, including air traffic controllers. Police, too. Judges. School teachers. Nurses. In fact, I can’t think of any job where merit should be ignored in favor of characteristics like race or sexual orientation unless you’re doing try-outs for a drag show.
The Secret Service used to be a boys’ club, quite literally. It wasn’t until 1971 that women could even apply, but in the ensuing years as the woke culture grew, so did female applications to the Secret Service. Today there are about 7,800 Secret Service employees and about a quarter of them are women. I think there is a role for female Secret Service agents, but it is a much smaller role than for the guys. But as the country got woke, the Secret Service wanted to hire lots and lots of women and other DEI types. But to get this many female recruits, the Secret Service had to change its standards.
A person entering the Secret Service, male or female, goes through the exact same training. The Secret Service favors young applicants (aged 20 to 29 years) but has different fitness standards for women versus men. For instance, men have to be able to do 55 push-ups, but women only 40. Men have to be able to do 11 chin-ups, but women need only do 4. And they all have to run a course of 1.5 miles but men have to run it in 10 minutes 16 seconds, while women must run the same track in 12 minutes and 50 seconds. This is like a college where both men and women can enter, but women can get their degree with less credits. Or imagine a medical school that has two sets of standards for becoming a doctor—and the girls do not have to do as well as the boys.
In the wake of the disaster at Butler, Pennsylvania, the world saw female Secret Service agents in action, and it wasn’t exactly inspiring. Trump is a big man, any which way you measure him. The female agents were too short to cover him from fire (the key job of the Secret Service’s Presidential Protection Detail or PPD is to protect the President). Trump is six foot three and it looked like the female agents were barely five foot five. Some of the female agents were portly and fumbled with their weapons like Barney Fife in the middle of a bank robbery.
This was the Secret Service under the direction of Kimberly Cheatle, who has since resigned. You may remember her testimony before Congress when she said that it was dangerous for her agents to stand on sloped roofs. I think that’s the first time a Secret Service Director ever got a belly laugh out of Congress.
Joe and Jill Love Kimberly Cheatle
So where did Kimberly Cheatle come from?
After earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1992, she served on the Secret Service from 1995 to 2019
During this time, she worked for Biden when he was Vice President and she had a warm friendship with both Bidens, particularly Jill
She left the Secret Service in 2019 to serve as Director of Global Security at Pepsi from 2019 to 2022
In 2021, President Biden gave Cheatle a Presidential Rank Award for “exceptional performance” but honestly, I can’t find out what this performance was. At that time, Cheatle was working for Pepsi, making the world safe for soft drinks
Biden tapped her in 2022 to head the Secret Service and, to the misfortune of the nation, she accepted
It was a prime example of a Biden appointment: Biden knew Cheatle already from the Obama administration when she was assigned to the Vice Presidential detail. She may have been amenable to overlook his various bizarre proclivities (Joe Biden liked to run around nude in front of female agents, not to mention he had a son addicted to crack, and he was skimming money from Burisma in a pay-for-play scheme).
More importantly, Jill Biden liked Kimberly Cheatle. And being a large-framed, humorless woke woman, Cheatle was picture-perfect for any high-ranking Democrat political appointment she did not deserve. The Bidens or whoever was in charge at the time wanted to be the wokest of the woke. If anyone ever came out of Central Casting to play the wokest, biggest, baddest DEI Secret Service director in history, it was Kimberly Cheatle.
One Hot Mess
During her tenure as head of the Secret Service, Cheatle was one hot mess. The Butler assassination attempt was preventable. Her testimony before Congress about the agency’s shortfalls in Butler was literally laugh-out-loud stupid. She argued that Secret Service agents should not ever stand on sloped roofs because of the tremendous dangers involved. (Secret Service people are trained to stand between a protectee and gunfire—but they’re too weak to stand on a sloped roof?)
In April 2024, an agent on the Vice Presidential detail for Kamala Harris assaulted someone—and not just anyone, this was a female agent who assaulted her superior officer. Cheatle did next to nothing other than assuring us DEI was working swell.
Petitions circulated around the Secret Service alerting the administration to security vulnerabilities, which Cheatle snorted at and dismissed. She was busy scheduling seminars on proper use of pronouns. Who cares if a protectee is injured or worse—the main thing is that her agents knew about zhe-zhem pronouns.
After the Butler assassination attempt, Brendan Boyle (D-PA) joined Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in calling for her immediate resignation—showing bipartisan support to get her out of office. It’s rare you see such an immediate and unified show of support across the aisle. That’s proof she was one hot mess.
When she testified before Congress on the assassination attempt on President Trump, she admitted it was the most significant operational failure of the agency in decades. Without exactly admitting to wrongdoing herself, she admitted that wrong stuff was done, but she had no plan to fix it. She didn’t even plan to discuss it honestly. Representatives from both parties called her testimony evasive and uninformative. Throughout this process, Cheatle vowed adamently she would not resign. After all, she was DEI. She didn’t have to do a good job, all she had to do was be a woke woman!
At the time, Kimberly Cheatle was so enamored of DEI she did not realize that she was aboard the Titanic and they had already hit the iceberg. Situational awareness was not one of her strong suits.
When Congress asked if she had turned down the requests from then-Candidate and now-President Trump to beef up his security for the Butler rally on that fateful day, Kimberly Cheatle refused to answer. Imagine being so DEI that you think you don’t have to take responsibility for your own agency, even when Congress asks you a simple question.
Ten Days After Butler
Kimberly Cheatled resigned on July 23, 2024, ten days after the Butler fiasco when the now-nearly-forgotten Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at Trump. She more or less had to. I’ve never seen a Congressional hearing go so far wrong so fast. By the time the Cheatle hearing was over, I bet Pepsi was thinking about asking for its money back.
Ironically, Kimberly Cheatle has had so many threats placed on her life after her resignation that she was awarded her own security team. I guess we all know that she lacked the skills to protect her own life.
“Ma’am, You Are a DEI Horror Story”
That’s what Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said during Cheatle’s sometimes comical but always infuriating testimony before Congress.
Remember, Kimberly Cheatle arrived at her new job brimming with enthusiasm for Jill Biden’s favorite issue: DEI. Cheatle even rebranded it to DEIA (since the more initials you have in your acronym, the more virtuous you are to the left). DEIA stands for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The accessibility part means that Cheatle was emphasizing hiring handicapped or “other-abled” people for the agency. That is an interesting approach to Secret Service work.
Kimberly Cheatle launched and was pushing hard for an initiative at the agency she called “30 x 30.” Remember how 24% of the Secret Service is female? Cheatle’s goal was to make it 30% by 2030. And it didn’t matter if these women were good, bad, or ugly, all that counted was that they had XX chromosomes or identified as women. The old idea of getting the cream of the crop was jettisoned—all that mattered here was sex demographics.
The role of women in the Secret Service has always been somewhat controversial, with curmudgeon Matt Walsh stating that any woman in the Secret Service is proof that a better-qualified male was passed over. I’m not sure I agree with Walsh but it is a nice turn of phrase. Former Secret Service agent turned Deputy Director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, once said on his podcast that there is a role for women in the Secret Service, because sometimes protectees were females and needed agents who could move easily in and out of women-only spaces. He also said that females were often more unobtrusive in crowds and were less likely to be noticed than burly men. However, the idea that a large proportion of Secret Service agents should be female is a DEI conviction, not anything based on real need. Even Bongino was not advocating that 30% of the Secret Service be female.
Why should 30% of the Secret Service be female? Well, because Jill Biden and Kimberly Cheatle said so. Imagine if they decided that 10% of the Secret Service had to be left-handed (that’s the percentage of southpaws in the general population). Imagine if they said that 10% of Secret Service agents had to have Rh-negative blood. These are things that are also irrelevant to the Secret Service mission.
One of the jobs of an agent on the Presidential Protection Detail (PPD) is to protect the president at all costs. If shots are fired, agents are supposed to make themselves bigger (usually by holding out their arms to make their jackets into a sort of shield) and stand between the President and the gunfire. The PPD is literally trained to move toward the gunfire and use their own bodies, if need be, to block any shots headed toward the protectee. If need be, agents are supposed to shield the President with their bodies. Agents on the PPD must be willing to take a bullet and even sacrifice their lives in defense of the protectee. This is not a trivial task.
Some people think the PPD is a police force; it’s not. They have no investigative responsibilities and they don’t chase bad guys. If a bad guy shoots at the President, the PPD protects the President and gets him out of harm’s way. It’s up to other agencies to pursue the assailants.
During the Butler assassination attempt, we learned that President Trump is a large man and most of the Secret Service sorority sisters are shorter and smaller than he is. It comes as a horrifying fact to the DEI crowd by women, on average, are shorter than men and not as strong as men. The footage from the Butler assassination attempt is a testimony to why DEI is a stupid idea. The little women trying to shield Trump were physically unable to do their job. This isn’t because they lacked motivation or desire; it’s not because they were bad people; it is because they lacked the necessary qualifications to do the job they were assigned. It’s commendable that they want to serve and even risk their lives in defense of the president, but just because you have good intentions does not give you good abilities. I think good music is a wonderful thing, but that doesn’t mean I can sing.
Of course, Cheatle’s response was, “the incident on the 13th has nothing to do with DEI.” Since she had made DEI the focal point of her tenure at the Secret Service, I would argue everything at the Secret Service during her unfortunate reign of incompetence can be laid at the feet of misguided DEI policies. Or maybe it was DEIA policies. The A in DEI never caught on that much.
It is no secret that Kimberly Cheatle focused most of her attention on DEIA initiatives, and that is somewhat understandable since she was tapped for the job by the Bidens, and the Bidens were all about throwing merit out the window in favor of divisive tribalism. DEIA is a form of tribalism: it’s seeking out more women or trans-people or brown people or recent immigrants or disabled people or whatever, and not looking for the best people for a particular job. DEI and DEIA pit groups against each other but it’s not a fair fight. It’s not a fight to see who is the best qualified person able to do the job—it’s a fight about which race or sex or sexual orientation is considered superior. DEI is racist and it fuels racism.
Kimberly Cheatle could point to herself as a textbook example of how DEI was bringing a fresh new vision to America. Unfortunately, it was a vision of Dante’s Inferno. Here’s how Cheatle ran the Secret Service.
Cheatle started recruiting for Secret Service agents at PRIDE events because nothing says presidential security more than a naked guy on a bicycle
Cheatle crammed lots of stupid seminars down the throats of her agents about things like the proper use of pronouns
Because of these things like “inclusivity seminars,” Cheatle crushed the morale of the Secret Service which is mainly served by manly men doing manly men things
Cheatle authored a strategic plan for the priorities of the Secret Service from 2023 to 2027 and she said that DEI had to be visible in every action of every agent every day. It didn’t matter that Crooks got off a shot against the President on July 13, 2024. To Cheatle, all that mattered is that there were women on the PPD that day
A recruiting brochure for the Secret Service during Cheatle’s leadership said that the goal of the Secret Service was to “be the gold standard of DEIA”
Cheatle’s addition of A to DEIA is disturbing. She called it Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility. I guess she wants handicapped people to serve on the front lines of the agency too. I am all in favor of making opportunities for people who are blind, deaf, confined to wheel chairs, have mental challenges, or other limitations. I’m just not sure the PPD is the place for them
Cheatle formed an Inclusion Engagement Council at the Secret Service for the sole purpose of promoting her woke ideology and demands. It had no security function at all
During Cheatle’s term as head of the Secret Service she posted a lot of woke stuff on social media. Why not post Secret Service stuff? And how did the hapless DEI queen have time to be on social media? (Answer: by neglecting the actual duties of her job)
Newspapers at the time stated that, at the Butler assassination attempt, DEI got a man killed, two seriously injured, and a president nearly assassinated. As harsh and terrible as that sounds, I think it is a true statement
If Kimberly Cheatle had been a Republican and this brutally inept, she’d probably be in prison right now
Woke Goes Up in Smoke
Where is Kimberly Cheatle today? Who even knows? She resigned from the Secret Service 10 days after the Butler assassination attempt (after swearing like Custer at Little Big Horn that she was there for the long haul) and she took her estimated $6M net worth with her. Some sources say her net worth is even higher than that.
While she was running the Secret Service into the ground, she earned $280,000 a year. The range of pay for the director of the Secret Service is $137,000 to $200,000 a year. How did she cross that threshold to take home $280,000? On average, a Secret Service Director earns just shy of $160,000. She was getting a lot more than that. I guess it pays to cozy up to the Bidens. Her pay is suspicious all by itself.
Online sources said she probably made about $1.3M while working at Pepsi and some of her large net worth may come from her corporate work.
One day she was running an important government agency, the next day she’s disappeared like a magician in a puff of smoke. Today, we don’t know much more about Kimberly Cheatle other than she failed at leading the Secret Service in an unparalleled way.
We don’t know where she lives—not even the state. Her marital status is not disclosed and it is not known if she has children. Even AI can’t tell me anything about her family situation or even what she is doing now. This may be due to her desire to protect herself and her family. Or maybe it’s because at the end of the day, she’s just a straight white person, and that shames her. But, hey— if she wants to stay out of public life for the rest of her days, I’m all for it.
I think you're being way too generous to Cheatle. I think she was in on an assassination attempt against Trump on July 13th. During her testimony to Congress about the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump she was under oath and she lied … multiple times.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna raised concerns about perjury and requested a hearing to see if charges should be pursued. She listed these concerns …
First, Cheatle stated that the Secret Service was unaware of a threat until seconds before the gunfire started. Luna cited communications from law enforcement group chats indicating that the Secret Service was made aware of a threat at around 5:59 p.m., well before the shooting. When Luna pressed Cheatle about this, Cheatle claimed Crook was just a “suspicious” person. But it’s now been established that Crooks was on law enforcement's radar three hours before the shots were fired and he was designated a “threat” 10 minutes before Trump took the stage. Cheatle had to have known this given the hearing was 9 days later.
Second, Luna questioned Cheatle about the Secret Service’s presence at a security briefing prior to the incident. Cheatle claimed that the Secret Service was present at the briefing, but Luna cited reports from officials who alleged that the Secret Service was not in attendance at the briefing, particularly regarding the AGR building where the shooter was located. This led Luna to conclude Cheatle’s statement under oath was inaccurate. And I believe it turned out that the SS were NOT present at the briefing.
Third, Luna expressed frustration that Cheatle was “stonewalling” the committee by refusing to provide clear answers to critical questions. Luna’s accusation of stonewalling suggests she believed Cheatle was deliberately withholding or misrepresenting information, which could contribute to a perjury concern if the testimony was intentionally misleading under oath. And look at the evidence. Question after question was answered with “I’ll have to get back to you on that” and “I am still verifying timelines”, despite it being 9 days into the investigation. And Luna wasn't the only one who thought that Cheatle was lying. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) called her “completely dishonest”.
I would add to that list Cheatle’s statement that the AGR sloped roof was too steep to put SS agents on it. If one has watched the videos or seen pictures from that day, it obviously wasn't. Cheatle said, as a result, “the decision was made to secure the building from inside.” That's utter nonsense. No, I think this was a lie to try and hide the fact that they deliberately left the AGR roof unmanned so a potential assassin they probably know about could use it.
Another lie is that the sniper teams could not see Crooks because of the pitch of the roof. However, a video, taken from the ground on the other side of where Trump was at the podium speaking, clearly shows Crooks head and torso above the crown of the roof as he ran towards where he shot from. By then, the SS had to have known that.
I think we have to consider Cheatle’s statements and her lack of cooperation in the Congressional investigation in light of her being a woke member of an administration that tried to keep Trump off the ballot, imprison him for life, bankrupt him, that raid his home with shoot to kill order, arrest him, and called him the next Hitler, a dictator, and threat to democracy. We have to look at what she did in the context of desperation the Obama/Biden administration showed in RussiaGate to keep Trump from taking office or remaining in office.
We have to look at this in light of the fact that knowing there was a threat loose in the area, Cheatle’s Secret Service allowed Donald Trump to take the stage. The SS knew he had a rangefinder. A rooftop counter-sniper team reported Crooks was scoping them out with his rangefinder. They noted his interest in the AGR building. They saw him return to the building area with a backpack. And once Crooks was on the roof, the SS was told there was a designated threat on the roof. The SS heard the police report there was a threat on the roof BEFORE they allowed Trump to take the stage. What the SS did violated all their protocols regarding threats. That’s why I think the SS leadership were part of that assassination plot and Cheatle had to be part of it. The SS didn’t even put a sniper on the highest structure in the area, a water tower with a clear view of the roof of the AGR building. And in the last moments they saw him and let him fire, rather than opening up on him first.
Another reason to suspect it was a Biden Administration plot to kill Trump is that that the official story kept changing. Over and over. And why did the FBI wash down the roof and stage soon after the attack? Why did they cremate Crooks body so fast? And not only Cheatle but the DHS and FBI refused to answer legitimate questions at the Congressional hearings. It was coverup by everyone involved in this and the truth still hasn’t come out.
All roads lead to Ukraine. Caused by Hillary’s pay for play hacked email servers RussiaHoax cover up. If Hillary had not screwed the pooch with Benghazi 9-11, the Obama-Biden Ukraine Laundromat would never have been unveiled. After Brennan, Nuuland and Eric Ciaramella funded the snipers for Ukraine Holocaust from USAID. To set up the Deep State Ukraine laundromat and counterfeit banking to fund Democrats by using A I to make it look like Bernie et al and being funded by thousands of small grass roots, when it is really just a few Billionaire GoreBullusts. Through shell companies like FTX. We never would have needed a Ukrainian named Chalupa to help Hillary. Lt Col Vindeman could have been Minister of Ukraine fencing of military hardware arms dealing. Hunter could have been a Billionaire oil man. And then Trump went and sent Javelins to Ukraine. Phootin had to use real tanks and military. A real Chalupa hot mess.
Darn that Algore and his inner netz!