Who is Kimberly Cheatle? All about Secret Service director as she resigns days after Donald Trump rally shooting incident
Kimberly Cheatle, who had served as the US Secret Service director since August 2022 recently stepped down following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
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Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigns days after Donald Trump assassination attempt
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Kimberly Cheatle served as the 27th Director of the United States Secret Service
Trigger Warning: This article contains references to a shooting incident.
Director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, announced her resignation in an email to employees. According to the Associated Press, her resignation comes ten days after former President Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Kimberly Cheatle served as the 27th Director of the United States Secret Service
The incident raised major concerns about the agency's capacity to carry out its primary duty of protecting sitting and former presidents. Cheatle who served as the 27th US Secret Service Director accepted full responsibility for the errors and referred to the Trump assassination attempt as the agency's most significant operational failure in decades.
Who is Kimberly Cheatle?
Cheatle was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, and raised in Danville, Illinois. She earned her degree in sociology with a criminal justice specialization from Eastern Illinois University. In 1995, Cheatle enlisted in the US Secret Service.
She was part of the US Vice President Dick Cheney's evacuation following the September 11 attacks. Under the Obama administration, she was assigned to Joe Biden's protection detail in the Vice Presidential Protection Division.
Cheatle was deputy assistant director in 2017 and 2018. She was the first female assistant director of Protective Operations, the division guarding the US President and other dignitaries.
Cheatle received a Presidential Rank Award from President Joe Biden in 2021 for her outstanding work. President Biden announced Cheatle's appointment as US Secret Service director in August 2022, and she took up the role on September 17, 2022.
Cheatle faced criticism over the Trump shooting incident
Cheatle was bombarded with calls for her resignation and multiple probes on how Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman, approached Trump so closely at an outdoor campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13.
After being shot, drenched in blood, and hauled off stage by Secret Service officials, Trump claimed in a post on social media that he had been hit by a bullet but was doing fine.