US Secretary of Homeland Security hits back at attacks on female Secret Service agents

The head of the US Homeland Security on Saturday hit back against misogynistic attacks on the female Secret Service agents who had put themselves in the line of fire to protect Donald Trump from an assassin.

“These allegations are baseless and offensive,” Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement after some members of the U.S. political right accused the Secret Service of “woke” hiring practices that nearly killed the former president.

Mayorkas praised the “highly qualified and well-trained” women who serve in police departments across the country and who “are on the front lines risking their lives for the safety of others.”

“They are brave and selfless patriots who deserve our gratitude and respect,” he wrote.

The Department of Homeland Security will “with great pride … continue to recruit, retain and promote women into the ranks of our law enforcement agencies,” he continued.

It has been a week since a gunman opened fire during a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, killing one bystander, wounding two others and leaving the Republican bleeding but alive.

Among the Secret Service agents, several women were seen running around to protect Trump with their bodies when the shots were fired.

But she and her boss, Kimberly Cheatle – only the second woman to head the federal agency responsible for protecting current, former and future presidents – are now the target of intense investigations into the near-catastrophic attack.

“There should be no women in the Secret Service. They should be the very best, but none of the very best in the job are women,” right-wing activist Matt Walsh wrote on X in a typically far-right post.

Many of the attacks cited diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices that some Republicans have long criticized as discriminating against white people, particularly white men.

“DEI results. DEI killed someone,” said a post on Libs’ popular TikTok account.

The Secret Service has defended itself against such allegations in the past. A spokesman told the US media just weeks before the attack that the agents “are held to the highest professional standards… at no time has the agency lowered those standards.”

Cheatle, who has so far ignored calls for his resignation, is scheduled to appear before Congress on July 22 for a hearing on the assassination attempt.

The Secret Service has also agreed to an independent review ordered by President Joe Biden.

Not all right-wingers supported this criticism.

“I saw two women, one with a gun in her hand and the other with her body around him,” Trump’s top adviser Chris LaCivita told CNN reporter Kate Sullivan in a post on X.

She said he continued, “I know there’s a swarm of Secret Service agents here who risked their lives and put their bodies between President Trump and the bullets, and anyone who said otherwise about those people on the stage is an idiot.”

st/Fox

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