By Steve Neavling
The Secret Service, under fire over missing text messages, has a new leader.
President Biden on Wednesday appointed Kim Cheatle, a veteran Secret Service official, to serve as the agency’s director.
She is the second woman to serve as Secret Service director.
Before Cheatle left the Secret Service in 2021 to work as a security executive at PepsiCo, she worked at the agency for 27 years and was the first woman to serve as assistant director of protective operations, the division that protects the president and others.
In a statement, Biden called Cheatle “a distinguished law enforcement professional with exceptional leadership skills, and was easily the best choice to lead the agency at a critical moment for the Secret Service.”
“She has my complete trust, and I look forward to working with her,” Biden said.
In 2021, Biden awarded Cheatle with a Presidential Rank Award for exceptional performance over an extended period of time.
Her appointment comes at a time when the Secret Service is under fire for deleting text messages around the time of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
