Saturday’s assassination attempt of Donald Trump provided the world with one of the most iconic images in American history.
The picture showed former President Trump, with blood dripping down his face, raising a fist in defiance of death.
That wasn’t the only notable image to make its way out of the Pennsylvania rally, however. In stark contrast to that picture of heroism were a few others that communicated quite the opposite.
The good news, I’m finally able to say I’m in better physical shape and my training is sharper than a Secret Service agent assigned to the Presidential Detail.
The bad news, it’s her. pic.twitter.com/xkLn7PUYpq— Blaine Pardoe (@bpardoe870) July 17, 2024
Why was the female secret service agent hiding behind the person she’s paid to protect?????
🤔🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/WULoeAOcs1— Mrs. S. (@hshLauraJ) July 15, 2024
As the dust settled from the incident, onlookers began asking questions.
How could this have happened? Why did the Secret Service — which was aware of the shooter up to 26 minutes ahead of time — not stop the threat?
Perhaps most pressingly — why are comparatively short women, one of them visibly overweight — working in Trump’s protection detail?
A quick look at the agenda of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle reveals the answer to that last question at the very least.
Under Cheatle’s leadership, the Secret Service has prioritized Diversity, Equity and Inclusion over competency-based hiring.
Equity in Practice: The Secret Service Lowered Standards for Female Candidates
The Secret Service hasn’t exactly hidden its desire to change the gender makeup of its employees.
Not just in the organization overall, but at every level in each type of position, including physically demanding roles — such as working on protection details — which highly competent men are overwhelmingly more qualified for.
In an interview with CBS News in 2023, Cheatle revealed her goal to have 30 percent of the agency’s recruits female by 2030.
Cheatle herself previously served on the protective detail of then-Vice President Joe Biden.
“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 said.
Cheatle’s efforts to shift the Secret Service’s gender makeup have been markedly successful.
In 2021, female trainees outnumbered their male counterparts for the first time.
Affirmative action policies no doubt helped along this change.
The official Secret Service website lists two sets of physical standards tests for recruits.
The first test is for male recruits and the second — with lowered thresholds for success — for their female counterparts.
For example, being able to do only four chin-ups is considered “very poor” for males between the age of 20-29, generating a score of zero, but doing four chin-ups for females who are between 20 and 29 is considered “excellent” and earns the candidate a top score for that fitness category.
The Secret Service website details how similar affirmative action policies have been employed for gay and transgender individuals, racial minorities, disabled persons and others.
Given that physical standards and expectations were lowered in this one instance, there’s no telling how many additional areas of competence have also been affected.
