DHS leadership defends female law enforcement agents after attacks on Secret Service

The Department of Homeland Security released a statement Saturday defending the presence of women in law enforcement, which has been increasingly scrutinized in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, and nine other senior DHS officials called “public statements questioning the presence of women in law enforcement,” including the Secret Service, “baseless and insulting.”

“Every single day, in communities big and small across our great country, women are serving in federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and campus law enforcement,” the statement reads. “They are highly trained and skilled professionals, who risk their lives on the front lines for the safety and security of others. They are brave and selfless patriots who deserve our gratitude and respect.”

The Secret Service has drawn the ire of many people after a shooter fired at Trump during his rally last weekend in Butler, Pennsylvania. The gunman shot six times before a Secret Service countersniper “neutralized” him. The former president, who has since accepted the Republican presidential nomination for the third consecutive cycle, thanked the “Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response” to the shooting in a post on Truth Social in the hours after it happened.

Cheatle, the second female Secret Service director in the agency’s 159-year history, has faced many calls to resign in the week after the assassination attempt, including from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). She has vowed not to step down.

“We in the United States Department of Homeland Security — the largest law enforcement organization in the federal government — will, with great pride, focus, and devotion to mission, continue to recruit, retain, and elevate women in our law enforcement ranks,” the DHS officials said. “Our Department will be the better for it, and our country more secure.”

In the week after the shooting, Trump attended the four-day Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and he held his first rally with running mate J.D. Vance on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Michigan.