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USSS Director Cheatle Resigns. Looking forward to watching some of her testimony once I’m off mobile, because apparently it was pretty damning.
I expected this. The government does not move fast, and those who took her continued employment as proof of conspiracy were…premature.
Odds that the Secret Service needs meaningful reform have gone way up. Odds that it gets dramatic reform have increased a bit. I think the ideal outcome would be a quiet panic and restructuring with minimal input from Congress; the more loudly public it gets, the more Democrats will try to sandbag something that they ought to support.
I expect actual reform to happen simply because if there's one thing that politicians on both sides of the aisle can unanimously agree on, it's that they don't want to get shot.
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Who’s the guy on here who said recently something to the effect of “woe to him who has the full backing of the board—he is a dead man walking.” I found it both hilarious and something I had never noticed before.
Yesterday I read that Cheatle had the “full confidence” of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and I knew. My hat’s off to that guy; I apologize I can’t remember your name.
There's a wonderful scene in the Australian mockumentary where John Clarke's character, an administrator of the 2000 Olympic Games, is in the back of a press conference where his boss, a minister, is addressing a scandal. Clarke hears the minister say that "Character X has my complete support" and immediately says into a cell phone, "do you know who's in line for X's parking space?"
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I'm not sure I really understand this. Can you explain it?
It's the same principle behind GoT meme of any man who must say I am the king is no true king. Also in general in organizations the position/authority is the weakest form of leadership compared to other forms such as competence, charisma etc. Telling somebody to do something because manager said so is the weakest form of authority you can use as last resort after inspiring and explanation failed and it is a sign of weakness.
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/u/fcfromssc is correct as usual but (as usual lol jk) too wordy, here's a cleaner explanation:
there is absolutely no reason for the board to publicly state that it "fully backs" you unless you're really in trouble
To press on this further, it just seems strange to me. But I am someone who (despite my years and success in big tech) considers himself to be organizationally illiterate. I get by without thinking deeply about organizational politics for the most part.
Some specific questions: Why would a board make such a statement, if they're just going to retract their support in a week? Do individuals lack foresight? Or are they pressured to do it by someone? If so, who? Are there times when boards make these statements and actually mean it?
Moving past the humble brag
People are not organizations and vice versa, but in general everything is motivated toward its' own perpetuation. I'd go on for 3 paragraphs if you're interested but really it's not a mystery why the board doesn't tank the stock on the off chance the principle survives
Hah, sorry. I guess it is a humble brag, but I think I meant it to be more self deprecating, like how could I have done as well as I have given I have no tolerance for or understanding of company politics. There's a lot of politics going on around me, and I mostly ignore it, somehow.
Definitely interested, I'd love to understand anything about this more than I do.
Doesn't the stock still tank one week later? And doesn't that make every person on the board (or at least the head of the board) unaccountable and stupid, that they said one thing and reversed so quickly? Couldn't they just say nothing in the meantime instead?
"Tank the stock now or (possibly) a week from now" is not a hard question for a board member
Everything exists to perpetuate itself. By definition. The first cell that became multiple set us on a course of forever wanting to do more, bigger, better. This is a measurable phenomenon. The people on the board might be 'unaccountable and stupid' but they're still acting on that maximization principle.
I'd apologize for promising 3 paragraphs but kinda proud of that summary, if you have more questions this is quite a fun exchange
Cool, I've got a few more questions.
I mean, to some extent. There are of course local maxima, and they may be maximizing over the next week. But what about beyond that? The head of that board that releases that statement looks unaccountable and stupid, which should, in theory, reduce others' ability to trust him in future years. Whereas by staying silent, he gets no such potential reputational damage.
If you told me that all boards don't really look beyond 1 week in the future, well, I don't have evidence to contradict you, because in my personal experience, the ones I've worked with have been very short-sighted. However, I would have hoped that there are at least some (hopefully more than just some) organizations that actually think about things on a longer-term scale.
Meanwhile, looking at it the other way, what would happen if a board made no such statement when there's a dead man walking? Does their statement do anything to actually help the situation? By keeping their mouths shut, would they get the best of both worlds, assuming the stock doesn't immediately tank just because they failed to make a statement that they don't actually believe anyway.
Also, talking about Cheatle, I don't think there's any stock involved, so what's at stake for the Secretary of Homeland Security to keep his mouth shut instead of endorsing her?
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An organization starts having serious problems. People start asking questions about the guy in charge, whether he's really doing a good job, whether he should keep his job. Typically, the guy in charge and the organization as a whole dismisses these questions out of hand. When they actually put out a statement that "the guy in charge has the full backing of the Board", what usually happens is that he's removed from his position within a week or two. The fact that they need to state that he has their backing is strong evidence that he probably shouldn't have their backing. I think the claim originally comes from observing head coaches in professional sports teams.
Ah, I see, thanks for the clarification! That makes sense.
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It's the same with starting quarterbacks. By the time a head coach has to answer questions about benching them, it's over.
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I find it very frustrating that senior government officals basically escape punishment for pretty gross negligence by leaving their jobs. I don't think there's a good solution for it (setting them up for special punishment will just make recruiting even harder) but it's still quite frustrating.
The obvious issue here is that you would then have a hard time getting anyone to take these jobs.
They already;
If you add on top of that "Your ass goes to fuckin' Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison" if someone or someone's down the line in your department / agency fucks the dog, you aren't going to get anyone interested in taking the job. Those that do are simply going to micromanage the shit out of everything to cover their own ass and the already ineffectual Federal government will become even more so.
Yeah, that's why it's something that grumps me, not something that I expect to ever actually change.
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Absent allegations of corruption or intentionally allowing the incident, what more would you suggest is appropriate for the director here? Seems like a straightforward organizational failure. If you headed a division at some mid-sized company tasked with some goal and brazenly failed that mission, you'd be fired and that would be the end of it. Why would this differ?
Because when a company fucks up customers can leave. When a government official fucks up the people using the service have to grin and bear it. Because government can force people to take actions, they should be held to a higher standard than competitive companies whose clients can leave.
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Did the Supreme Court not just rule that even the President is exemption from real consequences (other than being fired, which of course happens by different mechanism) for “official actions”? Would be hard to apply a tougher standard to lower level peons.
No, it didn't.
The Supreme Court's exemption (immunity) was bounded not only to official acts, but more narrowly official acts within the exclusive sphere of Constitutional authority of the President that was not shared with Congress.
The Secret Service does not have an Constitutional function in any since, and in so much that it does derive legal authorities, it does so via the Legislative branch, not unilateral-Executive.
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No, it absolutely isn't. But in general people shouldn't be criminally prosecuted for doing their jobs badly.
Yeah, baring evidence not presented yet, Cheatle just seems at worst incompetent and at best woefully hands-off, rather than malicious. I absolutely would like to see more serious consequences where evidence of bad behavior is clear -- Shelton Snow doesn't seem to have even been fired, and plausibly violated some laws; the various defiance of subpoenas or lying before Congressional committees -- but the part where they're almost never fired or forced to resign makes it kinda hilariously optimistic to ask for criminal prosecution.
But it isn't constitutionally prohibited, or even prohibited by statute. There's even statutes that are supposed to specifically prohibit government employees doing this sort of bad behavior. They're just never or almost never enforced.
I'm curious about her career. 20+ years in the Secret Service, with a majority of that on VP detail -- she reportedly escorted Cheney on 9/11 and later worked with the Biden family. A couple of years into Trump's admin, she quits and becomes a security bigwig for Pepsi. Biden pulls her back in about 18 months ago to head the SS.
One can guess that she hit it off with the Bidens during the Obama admin -- and who knows what crazy stuff she witnessed on that family's detail -- as they wanted her back last year. Did she move to Pepsi due to some issue with the Trump admin -- or Pence, if she was on his detail? Or did they have a problem with her if she was showing loyalties to the previous regime?
[EDIT: Answering my own question: "In 2016, she was appointed as the special agent in charge of the James J Rowley Training Center — the 202-acre Secret Service training academy." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-22/secret-service-director-kimberly-cheatle/104113980 Maybe she just didn't like the change from detail agent to a desk job?]
I noticed a few senators asking pointedly about her private communications with Jill Biden, and then saw some suggestions on X today that she may have been "involved" with Dr. Jill, so maybe that's a rumor swirling around DC and just starting to poke its head out for the rest of us.
It is intriguiging that someone who seems to display zero leadership or professional curiosity was gifted with the top job; but sometimes these figurehead roles can be handled with some quality delegation and run on autopilot -- until the shit hits the fan, leaving the detached leader looking like a deer in the headlights because they never really knew what was happening.
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Did the congressional hearings ever explain the "sloped roof" thing? I can think of hypotheses under which she's not malicious there (it was never really a thing, some underling told her 2+2=5 and she didn't see an issue with repeating that), but the null hypothesis here still seems to be "she just made something up in the middle of an investigation", which would mean it's at least some evidence of malice. We don't get pissed at Nixon because we think he broke into the Watergate; just helping with the coverup was bad enough.
No answers were given, but one of the 'critters had done some research and noted that the slope on the roof in question is within the ADA parameters for a wheelchair ramp...
There's quite a bit of funny shit on the record there, including a different guy telling her that she should 'go back to guarding Doritos'.
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I mean, not necessarily. Probably she spun a tale literally on the spot, just to have something to say. She failed the speech check this time. But when it does work, you don't notice. That's PR. No spokesperson is ever going to honestly say "we can't do our jobs well and I have no explanation."
Perhaps such an attitude technically is malicious, but no more so than any other PR in the history of PR.
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It was referred to several times. I think once she said something about it like, "I should have been clearer in my statement about that..." without really explaining what that meant. It was a truly abysmal and laughably uninvested performance by her. I couldn't tell if she was a professional time-waster, an incompetent of sociopathic proportions, or a malicious actor. It's bewildering how detached she was from her professional responsibilities.
I got the feeling she'd already given up on trying to keep her job
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She was asked and, like most of her answers, basically didn't answer it straight -- though she did throw out something not quite related. All she said was that in general, the Secret Service prefers "sterile rooftops". Either way I don't assign the comment much weight at all -- it's bound to be superceded by whenever we get an actual investigation report.
No, the real question is how quickly we get the report and how detailed the public-facing version is.
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What level of punishment would feel more appropriate?
I’ve been thinking about the “off-ramp” discussion below. This is a little different, since she’s not being asked to give up on a belief, so maybe Chen Sheng and Wu Guang are the relevant ones.
Losing your career and your reputation are pretty strong social punishments. To go higher, you’ve either got to coordinate ostracism or move into criminal penalties. Which, sometimes that’s the right move, but I can see why we shy away, and it’s not just because we’re soft.
The revolving door is famous enough to have its own wikipedia page. Most senior government officials don't lose their careers; they often go on to a far more lucrative position in the private sector. Katherine Archuletta (OPM head when they let the crown jewels of private info go to China) went back to campaign management and was recently inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. Pretty far from losing her career and reputation. I'd like to see people who oversee a massive fuckup on this level (letting a foreign power take the most secret personnel files under their control or letting a principal get shot) work and live only on the pay from a menial retail job for about a decade. I dont expect them to be sentenced to jail time but wouldn't complain about a substantial fine.
If you get to Director level for anything, you're never going to be unemployed (unless by choice). But reading between the tea leaves, you can see who gets good gigs and who gets forgotten.
Going into campaign work or lobbying is actually pretty close to the bottom (with some exceptions for lobbying). Campaign people and Lobbyists don't make as much as people think (but they do get to spend a lot on stuff) especially over the long term (it's very common for "Senior Advisors" at these kind of places to be rolling 6-month contracts that are cash only, no benefits, no 401k, no equity agreements etc.)
Sure, it isn't at all a bad life and you're probably still a top 5% (maybe 1%) earner, so my heart DOES NOT go out to them. But they also can't really go to "just another" job. They might not have any real qualifications, they're politically exposed, and a lot of them have over-calibrated towards government and government adjacent patterns and so don't even believe they can do anything else. It's a grind.
The other side of the coin are obvious and awesome. Eric Cantor lost one of the biggest house upset elections in history and now is one of the Princes of Wall Street. George Tenent left the CIA to go be a partner at what is the CIA of banks.
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It would be nice if she at least offered Seppuku.
“That won’t be necessary, officer. Half your ear will suffice.”
Suffice if Trump had been the only victim.
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