Kim Cheatle’s job at the top of the Secret Service was apparently too steep a slope on which to stand safely.
After a brutal tongue-lashing before the U.S. House Oversight Committee yesterday, followed by a bipartisan demand for her resignation, the disgraced director quit her job today.
Cheatle resigned her job in a letter to underlings. And the hot lamp under which she found herself yesterday came after a week of punishing revelations about the egregious lack of security at the campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where former President Trump was nearly assassinated. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired at Trump with a clear view from less than 200 yards.
After Cheatle resigned, GOP Oversight chief James Comer of Kentucky suggested that more heads might roll.
The Letter
Cheatle admitted in her 347-page sayonara that the Secret Service “fell short” of its job to protect Trump, and said “I take full responsibility for the security lapse.”
“I do not want my calls for resignation to be a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission,” the letter continued:
When I got the call asking if I would return to the Secret Service after my brief retirement, I did not hesitate. I love this agency, our mission, and the great men and women who sacrifice so much every day. I have, and will always, put the needs of this agency first.
In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director.
While Cheatle offered her lengthy resumé, presumably to justify her appointment as director, news reports make clear that she was not qualified for the job, and that she was obsessed with promoting women into positions for which they are not qualified.
Indeed, Cheatle only became director because he was a gal pal of First Lady “Dr.” Jill Biden. As the New York Post reported two days after the shooting, which left firefighter Corey Comperatore dead and two others wounded, “she was well liked by the future first lady and her most senior aides, including top adviser Anthony Bernal.”
Continued the Post:
“Cheatle served on Dr. Biden’s second lady detail and Anthony pushed for her,” a Democratic insider told The Post. “Anthony has no national security or law enforcement experience. He should have no influence over the selection of the USSS director.”
“I heard at the time she was being considered for director that Anthony had pushed her forward as an option,” another well-placed source told The Post.
Thus did today’s report about Cheatle’s resignation in The Washington Post explain that Secret Service insiders opposed the appointment, “according to a half-dozen written complaints Secret Service agents sent to The Post around that time and in the two years since.”
Those complaints said Cheatle never worked a “senior post on a presidential protection detail,” and “later in her tenure that she was excessively focused on hiring and promoting more women agents,” the Post reported.
Indeed, one of Cheatle’s daffy initiatives was her 30×30 campaign to put women in 30 percent of agency jobs by 2030. That would mean passing over combat-hardened special operators from the armed services, such as Marine Raiders and Navy SEALs. The reaction of women agents during the assassination attempt suggests that diversity, equity, and inclusion mightn’t be the best priority for the Secret Service director.
The six complaining agents also told WaPo they were upset about leaving the rooftop from which Crooks fired unsecured:
In addition, six of the former agents, all of whom have served in presidential protection details, told The Post that they found Cheatle’s public statements about security for the Butler, Pa., campaign event embarrassing.
They said they were particularly outraged by two comments she made in an interview with ABC News that aired days after the shooting.
First, she said local police were responsible for securing the Agr building on the outer perimeter of the event, implying they were to blame for the gunman getting atop the roof and being able to shoot at Trump’s stage. Second, she said no officer was stationed on the roof the gunman used in part because of a “safety factor” related to its slope. The Post previously reported that Secret Service countersnipers at the rally Saturday were positioned on steeper roofs.
“She’s lost the confidence of the service,” said one former agent who had defended her tenure until her comments to ABC News. “She can’t get it back now.”
Yesterday’s Hearing
Cheatle’s testimony yesterday before the Oversight Committee closely followed a WaPo report that the agency had, for two years, repeatedly denied the Trump campaign’s requests for more security.
South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace asked whether Cheatle wanted to write her resignation during Mace’s question time. The angry congresswoman also accused of the embattled director of “bullsh*t.”
Two GOP congressmen, one of whom was 70 years old, posted video of their walking on the roof from which Crooks fired.
After the hearing, which even included a hard-hitting question from leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, committee chief Comer and Ranking Minority Member Jamie Raskin of Maryland signed a joint letter that called for Cheatle to resign.
“Today, you failed to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures,” the congressmen wrote.
After Cheatle took the subtle hint that she wasn’t welcome and resigned, Comer strongly suggested that she mightn’t be the only agency employee whose career will end.
“There will be more accountability to come,” Comer said.
Cheatle “inspired no confidence” that she knew what she was doing or that “she has the ability to ensure the Secret Service can meet its protective mission,” he said.
Concluded Comer, “While Director Cheatle’s resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward.”
