A purse belonging to Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, that contained $3,000 in cash, her passport, driver’s license and her apartment keys was stolen while she ate dinner at a restaurant in downtown Washington on Sunday night.
The secretary revealed the theft to reporters at the White House Easter egg roll on Monday. Noem said the incident remained unresolved.
The Metropolitan police department in Washington on Monday referred questions to the homeland security department. The Secret Service also referred a request for comment to the department.
The DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement emailed to the New York Times, the department said: “Her entire family was in town including her children and grandchildren. She was using the cash withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities and Easter gifts.”
Noem, who oversees a department that is charged with securing the nation’s borders and its homeland, is protected by Secret Service agents. NBC News, citing a source who witnessed the meal, reported that “at least two on-duty plainclothes members of the US Secret Service” were seated at the restaurant’s bar.
The Secret Service is among the agencies housed within the department, along with Fema and the Coast Guard.
It is unclear whether Noem, a high-profile cabinet official who is tasked with carrying out Trump’s mass deportation campaign, was targeted or if the incident was random.
According to CNN, which first reported the incident, a Secret Service review of security camera footage from the restaurant showed an “unknown white male wearing a medical mask steal her bag and leave the restaurant”.
Asked about the theft, Noem told reporters on Monday: “I don’t think I can comment on it yet. It’s not resolved yet.”
Noem has aggressively pushed Trump’s hardline approach to immigration enforcement, recently traveling to El Salvador, where she was criticized for touring a notorious maximum-security prison that is holding hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the US earlier this month. That includes a Maryland man the administration deported in error and is declining to bring back, despite the supreme court unanimously ruling that the government should “facilitate” his return.
While there, Noem filmed a video of herself in front of a cell packed with prisoners, warning undocumented immigrants living in the US that “you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison”. On social media, critics assailed the secretary’s message – but also for the flashy accessory wrapping her wrist: a gold Rolex watch that sells for about $50,000.
Prior to joining the Trump administration, Noem was the governor of South Dakota and previously represented the state in the US House of Representatives.
