Embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who is facing congressional outcry and calls to resign over security lapses leading to former President Donald Trump’s near-assassination Saturday, landed her role thanks largely to a close relationship with first lady Jill Biden, The Post has learned.
Cheatle, 53, is the second woman to lead the presidential protection agency and secured the non-Senate-confirmed role in August 2022 after a three-year stint as senior director of global security at PepsiCo. Before that, she had served 27 years in the Secret Service, beginning in the Clinton administration.
Four sources close to President Biden’s family, including people who interacted with Cheatle during the Obama-Biden administration, said she was well liked by the future first lady and her most senior aides, including top adviser Anthony Bernal.
“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.
Bernal, 51, is widely regarded as rivaling even White House chief of staff Jeff Zients in terms of influence over administration decisions. He has faced allegations of bullying and sexual harassment from colleagues who have likened his sway to that of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin over the Romanov court.
“Anthony is obsessed with being DEI-compliant,” a third source told The Post, using the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion — the human resources practice of attempting to ensure diversity in the workforce.
Cheatle is expected to provide a briefing to members of Congress Tuesday on how gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to climb onto a roof about 130 yards from Trump’s location at a rally in Butler, Pa., before firing an AR-15-style rifle at the former president, wounding him and two others and killing a rally-goer.
The director also is expected to appear next Monday at a public hearing of the House Oversight Committee.
Republican members of Congress, however, are questioning Cheatle’s leadership.
“Somebody really dropped the ball. You’ve got a DEI person, a DEI initiative person who heads up our Secret Service,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told Fox News following the attack.
Some of The Post’s sources praised Cheatle as reliable and likable.
“Kim was always professional and a very competent agent. She was always good to work with,” said The Post’s fourth source.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said that “Director Cheatle was chosen because of her deep qualifications for the job. She served in the Secret Service with distinction for 25 years, earning a reputation for excellence, hard work, and integrity.”
Cheatle’s link to the Biden family was known to some extent previously. In his announcement of her appointment in 2022, the president said, “Jill and I know firsthand Kim’s commitment to her job and to the Secret Service’s people and mission.”
“When Kim served on my security detail when I was vice president, we came to trust her judgement and counsel,” Joe Biden said in the statement announcing her selection.
The precise mechanics of Cheatle’s appointment were not clear to The Post, including whether the Secret Service conducted a supplemental selection process or if the decision was made entirely within the White House.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the first lady’s office did not offer comment.
