It occurs to me the Noem purse theft may not be a simple robbery [View all]

I didn’t work in the field of intelligence that involves secret agents and skulking in the shadows, but the people who do use a technique called a brush pass to transfer information from an agent to his or her handler. For example, you might wind a piece of paper with secrets written on it around the filler in a Bic Clic pen and “accidentally” find yourself in a mall near your handler. The handler sees a display of cards you can fill out to get information about a timeshare or something, but he doesn’t have a pen so when he asks if anyone has one you give him the one with the secrets in it and disappear into the crowd.

Because a Secretary of Homeland Security has a bodyguard at all times and they would have noticed someone stealing their principal’s purse, it seems to me that this bag being used as the container for a brush pass is more likely. And because there was so much money in there, I think she was passing orders and payment to an informant or other kind of agent rather than passing it up to her own handler.

“But what about the makeup bag?” Noem wears a lot of makeup, and when she isn’t using her purse to pass information she needs it to carry things she needs in daily life.