Who Runs the Secret Service? Kimberly Cheatle Under Fire After Trump Attack

After former President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt on Saturday during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, people have raised concerns online over the U.S. Secret Services’ failure to prevent the shooting, with some calling for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign.

Cheatle was sworn in on September 2022 and has over 7,800 employees under her leadership. Before coming to the Secret Service, Cheatle was PepsiCo’s senior director in global security, which “involved developing risk management assessment and risk mitigation strategies,” according to her bio on the Secret Service website. Cheatle is not new to the Secret Service. Before working for Pepsi, she served 27 years in the agency.

Her most recent role at the agency before her stint at PepsiCo was as Assistant Director of the Office of Protective Operations, which involved balancing the budget and researching risk reduction for protected personnel, facilities, and events. Before that, she served as Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta Field Office, “providing oversight for all mission related investigations, protective intelligence and protective visits in the state of Georgia.”

Cheatle also previously ran the Secret Service training facility, the James J. Rowley Training Center, and before that, she was the Special Agent in Charge at the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy.

Newsweek has reached out to the Secret Service via email on Sunday morning for comment about concerns about the Secret Service’s failure to prevent the shooting.

While speaking at an outdoor rally in Butler on Saturday at around 6 p.m. ET, Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, was struck by a bullet that pierced his right ear in what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is calling an assassination attempt. Video of the shooting showed members of Trump’s Secret Service team using their bodies as human shields around the former president to get him into his car and away from any more danger.

Trump is “fine” according to his spokesperson. The 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, who fired rounds off the roof of a nearby building, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper. One rally attendee was killed in the shooting and two more are in critical condition, according to the Secret Service.

Following the shooting, people began to ask questions about how Crooks was able to pull the trigger, concerned that such an attack could happen in the presence of the Secret Service and other security.

“How was a sniper with a full rifle kit allowed to bear crawl onto the closest roof to a presidential nominee,” conservative activist Jack Posobiec asked on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday night.

How was a sniper with a full rifle kit allowed to bear crawl onto the closest roof to a presidential nominee

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 14, 2024

At a late-night news conference on Saturday, which the Secret Service did not attend, Pennsylvania State Police Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens said, “It is incredibly difficult to have a venue open to the public, and to secure that against any possible threat, against a very determined attacker.”

Former President Donald Trump is rushed off stage by U.S. Secret Service agents after being grazed by a bullet during a rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. After Trump’s assassination attempt, people have raised concerns…

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Meanwhile, a rallygoer told the BBC that he noticed the shooter bear crawling on a building that was “50-feet away from us.” He said he was trying to get the police and the Secret Services’ attention.

“We’re standing there. We’re pointing at the guy crawling up the roof…we could clearly see him with a rifle,” the rallygoer said.

Billionaire Elon Musk reacted to a video of the rallygoer and wrote on X on Saturday night: “The head of the Secret Service and the leader of this security detail should resign.”

Conservative social media account Libs of TikTok, which mostly shares content attacking liberals, posted a photo of Cheatle on X on Saturday night and wrote: “She needs to resign immediately and be investigated. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN.”

This is Kimberly Cheatle, the Director of Secret Service.

She needs to resign immediately and be investigated.

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN pic.twitter.com/qatgoAD00c

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 14, 2024

On Saturday evening, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, wrote: “THE HOUSE WILL CONDUCT A FULL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS TODAY. The American people deserve to know the truth. We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP.”

THE HOUSE WILL CONDUCT A FULL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS TODAY.

The American people deserve to know the truth. We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP.

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) July 14, 2024

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into the shooting and asked Cheatle to testify on July 22.

“The tremendous bravery of the individual United States Secret Service agents who protected [former] President Trump, eliminated the gunman, and possibly averted more loss of life cannot be overstated,” Oversight Committee chair James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote in the letter sent on Saturday formally inviting her to testify.

Trump also thanked the Secret Service and other law enforcement officials “for their rapid response on the shooting” in a Truth Social post on Saturday night. He also shared his condolences to the families of the other shooting victims.

Was Additional Security Denied?

Representative Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican, claimed that U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denied “repeated requests” for more Secret Service protection for Trump.

Waltz wrote on X on Saturday night, “I have very reliable sources telling me there have been repeated requests for stronger Secret Service protection for [former] President Trump. Denied by Secretary Mayorkas.”

However, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told Newsweek via email on Sunday morning: “The assertion that a member of the former President’s security team requested additional security resources that the U.S. Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security rebuffed is absolutely false. In fact, recently the U.S. Secret Service added protective resources and capabilities to the former President’s security detail.”

He continued: “The former President, and the current President, are commonly subject to threats. The U.S. Secret Service takes threats seriously, and it takes actions based on those threats as warranted. The U.S. Secret Service is constantly evaluating the very dynamic threat environment and responding to it in the fulfillment of its responsibilities.”

Update 7/14/24, 12 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.