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Olivia Troye, who served as a homeland security and counter-terrorism adviser to former Vice PresidentMike Pence, says it was “a known thing” in the Trump White House that her colleagues were sometimes careless in handling sensitive documents.
“I found classified information in the ladies' room of the White House one time in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building,” Troye said during aninterview with MSNBCfollowingexplosive revelationsabout top secret materials seized atDonald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home during anFBI searchlast week.
The discovery of files in the bathroom happened before the pandemic, Troye told Insider, adding that she “thought it was odd that someone put them down and forgot them.”
Troye, who eventually left her job in the administration and has become acritic of the former president, said she immediately turned the materials over to security.
“I covered it up, I put it in a folder. It wasn’t marked properly,” she said Friday. “I was not expecting to walk into the ladies' room and find a document like that.”
In a follow-up interview on Sunday, Troye told MSNBC that she can still “remember the panic” when she realized what had been carelessly left on a bathroom shelf.
“There is sort of a blood-pressure rise in you where you pick it up, and you’re like, ‘Oh what do I do with this? I have a responsibility to protect it.'”
A source previously toldThe Washington Postthat the investigation was in regard to sensitive materials, including thosepertaining to nuclear weapons.
The warrant also indicated that Trump was being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws related to national security.
Troye said officials with security clearance that allow them to view and handle classified materials typically take measures to keep them secured. But according to her, that didn’t always happen in the Trump White House.
“It was a known thing. People would carry documents around — especially political appointees — around and traditionally you would put it in a pouch, and you would secure it, and you would lock the pouch and then carry it,” Troye said. “That’s not what was the norm in the White House, and I do think there were numerous situations where you would see this kind of behavior.”
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“For those of us that have clearances, again, you do have a responsibility to protect the information,” Troye added. “You don’t carry it home and store it for whatever number of months in an unclassified facility.”
Trump has said on Truth Social that any documents in his possession had been declassified.
source: people.com
