Investigators have arrested a person accused of being involved in the theft of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s handbag at an upscale Washington hamburger restaurant last weekend, the Secret Service said Sunday.
Matt McCool, a special agent at the Secret Service, said in a statement that the suspect did not seem to have targeted Ms. Noem because of her position. He did not release the suspect’s name, but he described the person as “a serial offender” who had tried to use Ms. Noem’s credit card and gain access to her electronic devices.
Ms. Noem’s purse was snatched from underneath her chair on April 20, Easter Sunday, as she dined with her family at The Capital Burger in downtown Washington. The bag contained the secretary’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, blank checks, department badge, passport and $3,000 in cash.
Ms. Noem’s spokeswoman previously said that the thief had hooked the secretary’s bag with his foot, dragged it across the floor and put a coat over it before leaving the restaurant. Although several Secret Service agents were accompanying Ms. Noem, they were more than 20 feet away from her at the time to give her privacy to enjoy a meal with her family.
In a social media post about the arrest, Ms. Noem described the suspect as a “career criminal” and a foreign national who had entered the United States illegally. The Secret Service did not confirm Ms. Noem’s allegation but directed the questions to federal prosecutors assigned to the case. Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, said the suspect had entered the United States illegally and that law enforcement officials were seeking more people connected to the theft.
Mr. McCool, the Secret Service agent, said in a statement that five law enforcement agencies, including Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were involved in the investigation.
The theft was the latest episode that raised questions about the Secret Service, which has been under intense scrutiny since Donald J. Trump was the target of two assassination attempts last year as a presidential candidate.
