A surreal scene unfolded at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday when angry senior senators chased the embattled director of the US Secret Service into the women’s bathroom.
‘You answer to us!’
‘You can’t hide from us!’
Sens. Marsha Blackburn and John Barrasso shouted and pointed angrily as they chased Secret Service Director Kimberly A. Cheatle through the lobby of Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum and up a flight of stairs.
Cheatle, 53, accompanied by her deputies, rushed into the bathroom. Her staff held the door, blocking the angry lawmakers from entering.
“It’s appalling that the Director of the Secret Service has refused to answer our questions,” Senator Blackburn said after the incident.
A surreal scene unfolded at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday when two furious senior senators chased embattled US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle into the women’s bathroom.
Experts tell DailyMail.com that these failings are a symptom of an “agency in crisis” after decades of understaffing and corrupt promotional practices.
Fury had erupted earlier in the day after Cheatle and his top aides briefed senators on a private conference call about the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in rural Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Senator Barrasso described the meeting as “an informative meeting that covers your back 100%.
Cheatle apparently could not explain how officers failed to stop Thomas Matthew Crooks from climbing onto a roof and shooting Trump from less than 150 yards away, even though the gunman was seen by police 20 minutes before the shots were fired.
“No one has taken responsibility. No one has been held accountable. Someone has died. The president was almost assassinated. The head of the Secret Service must go,” Barrasso said later.
Now that more fingers are pointing at Cheatle, new allegations have revealed the depth of dysfunction within the service, with Department of Homeland Security whistleblowers claiming Saturday that most of Trump’s security team was “not even Secret Service” and “not familiar with standard protocols.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley wrote to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday outlining those allegations and a litany of other alleged security failures: “Sniffer dogs were not used to monitor entry and detect threats in the usual manner.
Now that more fingers are pointing at Cheatle, new allegations have revealed the depth of dysfunction within the service, with Department of Homeland Security whistleblowers claiming Saturday that most of Trump’s security team was “not even Secret Service” and “not familiar with standard protocols.”
‘Individuals without proper authorization were able to access the backstage areas. Department personnel failed to adequately monitor the security perimeter around the podium and failed to park at regular intervals around the event’s security perimeter.’
Whether or not Hawley’s wild claims are true, the Secret Service and Cheatle have a lot to answer for.
And now experts tell DailyMail.com that these failings are a symptom of an “agency in crisis” after decades of understaffing and corrupt promotion and hiring practices.
John Koskinen of the nonpartisan National Academy of Public Administration led an 18-month study of the Secret Service workforce in 2019.
Saturday’s events came as a surprise to him, but Koskinen was not surprised by the whistleblowers’ claims, telling DailyMail.com that the service has been struggling to cover increasing numbers of people and respond to more sophisticated threats in recent years.
“Life has become much more complicated,” he said, “the threats are more sophisticated and constant, and now you’re in the middle of a campaign.”
Cheatle, 53, was named director of the Secret Service in 2022, having worked for the agency for 27 years before leaving in 2019 to lead global security at PepsiCo.
In announcing his selection, President Joe Biden revealed that “Kim” had “served on my security team when I was vice president” and that he and Dr. Jill Biden “came to trust her judgment and advice.”
Sources went so far as to tell the New York Post on Monday that Cheatle had been hand-picked for the job by first lady Jill Biden’s top aide Anthony Bernal, who is reportedly “obsessed” with DEI.
“Cheatle was part of Dr. Biden’s second lady team and Anthony promoted her,” said one source. “I heard that when she was being considered for director, Anthony had proposed her as an option,” added another.
For her part, Cheatle has been outspoken about her goals of increasing the number of women recruited by the agency to 30 percent of all new hires by 2030.
And he hasn’t done himself any favors in his public appearances since the shocking security breach in Pennsylvania last weekend.
Cheatle said in an interview on ABC News days after the shooting that officers did not secure the roof from which the shooter fired because, “That particular building has a sloped roof, at its highest point… And so, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there and that is we wouldn’t want to put someone on a sloped roof.”
Critics, such as former FBI Deputy Director Chris Swecker, called that explanation “absurd.”
For her part, Cheatle (above, right) has been outspoken about her goals of increasing the number of women recruited by the agency to 30 percent of all new hires by 2030.
“Nobody is saying you need to have someone on the roof. You need to have someone watching the roof 100 per cent of the time,” he told the Mail. “If they are too scared to go on the roof, keep an eye on them.”
Tristan Leavitt, who led a year-long investigation into the Secret Service for the Republican Oversight Committee in 2015, told DailyMail.com that Cheatle was likely to be promoted because of her close relationship with the Bidens.
“It’s pretty standard,” he said, “directors usually come from within, so if you’re going to cast someone from within, you’re going to cast someone you have a good relationship with.”
The danger, Leavitt says, is that personal connection “is not a good basis for selecting someone.”
He added: “Saturday’s assassination attempt appears to be closely related to a staffing issue; the Secret Service has been losing staff for a long time.”
“Many, many Secret Service agents felt that within the service, it was not about promoting the best, it was about who you knew,” he said. “It’s an agency in crisis.”
Of course, previous Secret Service directors have also worked closely with presidents prior to their selection.
James Murray, who was a director before Cheatle, served on Trump’s 2016 election and inauguration, and Joe Clancy, a few years before him, served on Barack Obama’s personal protection team.
However, this is not the first time that Cheatle’s or the Secret Service’s close ties to the Bidens have been called into question.
Experts tell DailyMail.com that these failings are a symptom of an “agency in crisis” after decades of understaffing and corrupt promotion and hiring practices.
The agents were accused of improperly interfering in the investigation into whether the president’s son, Hunter Biden, lied on federal firearms forms to purchase a revolver at a Delaware gun store in 2018.
In June, Hunter was convicted of three felonies related to the purchase.
But early in that case, FBI documents revealed that the gun store owner claimed Secret Service agents showed up at his business and asked to remove documents Hunter had signed.
The business owner refused and the officers reportedly left.
The Secret Service has denied the allegations, but two years later, the government transparency group Judicial Watch obtained hundreds of pages of internal communications between Secret Service officials about the alleged incident.
The documents revealed that agency officials discussed media reports about the incident.
One agent found it “strange” that the agency was involved in the investigation since the Biden family was not receiving Secret Service protection at the time.
Another official replied: “Maybe they asked us for a favor?”
“These new documents suggest that the Secret Service’s denial that it was not involved in Hunter Biden’s weapons cover-up cannot be taken at face value,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told DailyMail.com at the time.
Cheatle herself was then dragged into the debacle surrounding the Hunter lawsuits in September 2023, when the House Oversight Committee ordered her to make her employees available for interviews after whistleblowers alleged that Secret Service agents tipped off the Bidens about an IRS investigation into Hunter.
Additionally, IRS Supervisory Agent Gary Shapley and FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joe Gordon said they were told by senior FBI officials to wait for permission from the Secret Service before they could go to Hunter’s home to interview him.
According to Shapley and Gordon, that call from the Secret Service never came.
Following Trump’s near-death, Leavitt says there’s no way Cheatle can remain in office.
“The difference between life and death in Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Trump was inches and a light wind,” he said on X.
And as fury mounts, he says it’s not a question of if Cheatle will resign, but when.
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