US NEWS
The ‘woke’ ways of President Biden and Kimberly Cheatle’s US Secret Service
By Social Links forRich Calder
Published July 20, 2024, 11:41 a.m. ET
Embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has unabashedly embraced woke initiatives at the agency ever since she took over two years ago — including recruiting at Pride events, hosting seminars on pronoun use and even bringing in a popular YouTube female daredevil to attract a more diverse workforce.
Cheatle, 53, unveiled her marching orders in the Secret Service’s 2023-2027 strategic plan, demanding agents to be “focused on achieving excellence through talent, technology and diversity,” documents reviewed by The Post show.
“We must embrace diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) across the agency,” wrote Cheatle, a longtime friend of First Lady Jill Biden who was plucked in 2022 from her previous job as global security boss at PepsiCo by President Biden to be the second woman to lead the federal agency. “DEIA must be demonstrated by all employees — leading by example — through ‘every action every day.’”
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle
Part of the diversity effort to attract women included letting YouTube influencer Michelle Khare — who’s best known for posting videos of herself training to become everything from an astronaut to a bomb squad officer — give the Secret Service academy a try.
“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 last year, adding she set a target of 30% of recruits being female by 2030.
Other examples of the Secret Service’s increasingly woke turn include:
- Hosting a seminar on the “respectful use of pronouns” during the agency’s annual “Unity Day,” where diversity is celebrated.
- Having a recruiting brochure that boasts the agency is “striving to be the gold standard” of DEIA.
- Forming an “Inclusion Engagement Council,” which the agency’s website defines as “game changers” helping the Secret Service mold a workforce “where diversity and inclusion is not just ‘talked about’ — but demonstrated by all employees through ‘Every Action, Every Day.’”
- Setting up agency booths at Pride events across the country to recruit.
During a 2022 agency podcast, Andrew “Drew” Cannady of the Secret Service’s Office of Chief Counsel, revealed recruitment efforts targeting the LGBTQ community has resulted in more transgender people joining.
He also said the “pronoun” seminar was needed “to try and educate the workforce … because some of this stuff, you know, is cutting-edge and new, and people just may not be familiar with it.”