The Secret Service’s website clearly states that a “commitment to diversity” and maintaining an “inclusive” work environment are agency priorities. Additionally, Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director who was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, has been unambiguous about her intention to hire more women.
Cheatle’s agenda to be more inclusive and bring in females was so specific that in her first network television interview since becoming director of the Secret Service she told CBS News last year she wanted women to make up 30 percent of recruits by 2030.
“I’m very conscious as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle told CBS News last year. In as part of her effort to diversify the agency, she has allowed YouTube influencer Michelle Khare to train with agents.
Recruitment and retention are additional challenges the agency has suffered. The Secret Service’s departure rate was 48% last year due in part to the job’s high demands.
Cheatle was appointed director last year, amid a swirl of controversy the agency faced over deleting most of its text messages from Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters entered the U.S. Capitol in 2021. The agency attributed it to a data migration.
Joseph Sordi, a former New York Police Department intelligence officer who is now president of the New York–based Strategic Security Corp., was blunt: Saturday’s security failure was “a direct outcome of a failure to recruit, lowering training standards, retaining experienced officers,” he told National Review.
As a result of the anti-police sentiment and increased oversight that coincided with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement over the past decade, many veteran local and federal law-enforcement officers exited the field, in part to preserve their retirements, Sordi said.
“The constant thing I hear from these individuals is, it’s just not the same job anymore,” including more scrutiny and less freedom to “pursue and hunt down threats,” he said.
Sordi said that is fair to point out. The female agent who protected Trump may be a great agent, he said, but “you have to use people where they’re going to be most effective.”
“They can’t keep agents,” said Ron T. Williams, a former Secret Service agent who is now the head of Talon Companies, a trio of Los Angeles–based private security firms. “They’re replenishing the force with agents that would have never made it in my day.”
Most female agents shouldn’t be on the inner perimeter of protective details. “They’re not strong enough, they’re not fast enough,” he said.
