Sherman R. Frederick/Properly Subversive
I’m not sure you can heap enough criticism on the Biden Administration for the lapse in security for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump a year ago this week in Butler, PA.
Sen. Tom Cotton, above, whom I don’t think we hear enough from in the national news, told “Fox News Sunday” that “serious failures” took place.
“The Secret Service was not responsive to the request not only of the Trump campaign, but the head of the security detail, who is now the head of the Secret Service as well.”
Cotton is bullseye-right in that, of course. But, allow “Properly Subversive” this morning to go just a bit further.
The Biden Administration was a crew of ideologues intent on making every level of government — the military and the Secret Service included — judged more by its DEI adherence than by competency. Joe Biden appointed Kim Cheatle head of the Secret Service. A longtime friend of the First Lady Jill, Cheatle started the “woke-above-competency” campaign by, as the New York Post reported, unveiling the Secret Service’s 2023-2027 strategic plan, demanding agents to be “focused on achieving excellence through talent, technology and diversity.”
Cheatle wrote: “We must embrace diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) across the agency.” That meant aggressively recruiting more women into the Secret Service, training agents on the “respectful use of pronouns,” setting up recruiting booths at Pride events and creating an “Inclusion Engagement Council” to mold the Secret Service into an agency “where diversity and inclusion is not just ‘talked about’ — but demonstrated by all employees through ‘Every Action, Every Day.’”
That translated into scenes in which we saw female agents too short to shield the 6’3” Trump. Another agent struggled to holster her firearm as a wounded Trump was whisked into his getaway SUV.
Tom Cotton would be too much of a Southern gentleman to say it more plainly, but Elon Musk isn’t. He wrote on X at the time:
“Having a small person as body cover for a large man is like an undersized Speedo at the beach – doesn’t cover the subject. Could be a man or a woman, to be clear, just needs to be large enough to do the job.”
Recruit women, etc. Fine by me.
Just make sure everyone on the job is up to snuff when the time comes.
Clearly, the Secret Service wasn’t ready a year ago.
(Sherman Frederick is a Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame journalist. You can read more “Properly Subversive) at shermanfrederick.substack.com.)
