It is the mystery that has gripped Washington.
On Sunday night, Kristi Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, was dining downtown at Capital Burger with her family when a thief snatched her purse out from under her chair.
The culprit scored, big time: The bag contained Ms. Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, blank checks, department badge, passport and $3,000 in cash.
The Capital Burger caper made for capital farce — the top official charged with patrolling the nation’s borders and protecting it from terrorist threats, burgled in plain view of her security detail. That it happened to Ms. Noem, of all cabinet officials, only added to the drama.
In an administration full of ready-for-TV characters, Ms. Noem stands out. Last year, she drew attention for writing in her autobiography about shooting her dog who proved “untrainable” and “dangerous.” More recently, she made headlines for wearing a $50,000 gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch while touring a notorious prison in El Salvador. In the photos and videos she posts in her role as homeland security secretary, she wears tactical gear, poses with guns and accompanies border agents on missions to nab migrants; even some of President Trump’s allies have characterized many of her actions as little more than stunts.
The theft was common knowledge among the lunchtime crowd this week at Capital Burger, a pub that sits in the shadow of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. It’s the kind of place with a giant pretzel and “kung pao” brussels sprouts on the menu.
“It’s a little weird,” said John Lauck, 28, who said he worked for the military and was in town from Texas. “I don’t know why anybody would have that much money on them.”
On Thursday, the restaurant was filled mostly with people attending conferences across the street. One was the “World Vaccine Congress,” which bills itself as “the world’s largest vaccine event.” It drew in lots of scientific experts from various European nations. The other conference was the IAPP Global Privacy Summit, a gathering for thousands of tech security experts.
Many had seen the headlines and knew they were eating at a famous crime scene. The security conference crowd did not seem quite as amused as the Europeans.
“I find it very funny,” said Niko Pyrhönen, 29, a researcher from Helsinki. It was his third day in a row eating at Capital Burger. “From the Finnish perspective, it’s weird,” he added, “because we don’t use cash in Finland a lot; we always use phones when we pay, or cards.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that Ms. Noem had withdrawn the cash to spend while her family was in town on vacation.
“I don’t really think someone who lives in D.C. is going to have great insight into why a rancher is carrying physical money versus a credit card,” Ms. McLaughlin told a New York Times reporter, referring to Ms. Noem’s South Dakota background. She declined to explain further.
Other mysteries about the burger joint episode persist.
How exactly could the thief pull off the heist with Ms. Noem’s security detail there?
One law enforcement official familiar with what happened said that there were several agents assigned to Ms. Noem who were at the restaurant that day, but that they were hanging back more than 20 feet away, wanting to give Ms. Noem space to enjoy an Easter Sunday with her family. While the agents did keep a clear line of sight to Ms. Noem, they apparently couldn’t see everything that was happening around the table. Or, more specifically, under the table.
The thief was at a nearby table and didn’t have to approach the homeland security chief to snag her bag. As Ms. Noem’s spokeswoman has said, “her bag was under her feet, and the perpetrator hooked the bag with his foot and dragged it across the floor and put a coat over it and took it.”
The Secret Service is leading the investigation until it can be ruled out that the theft targeted Ms. Noem because she is the homeland security secretary.
“It’s embarrassing as hell,” said Ronald Layton, a 26-year veteran of the Secret Service. And yet, he wasn’t entirely shocked that it happened. “In my experience, sometimes the protectee will want more intimate moments with family members,” he said. “They may not want to see agents hovering over their shoulder, especially in restaurants.”
Waiters at Capital Burger on Thursday tittered nervously when asked about the crime but said they had been instructed not to talk to the news media. Calls to the restaurant’s management went unanswered. The customers were not as circumspect.
A natty German man wearing suede loafers and eating lunch alone said he had heard the story about the homeland security secretary. Told that the incident had occurred at the very restaurant in which he was now sipping sauvignon blanc, the man threw his head back and laughed uproariously.
So did a man from London and two women from Paris.
A few tables down, four American women who had come to Washington for the security conference were puzzled by the entire scenario. They said they still didn’t understand why Ms. Noem was carrying around so much money, how she could have left herself so vulnerable, and why the agents did not see the thief moving about.
Then one of the women picked up her bag off the floor and dramatically clutched it to her chest. The others began to laugh.
