Olivia Troye served as homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Pence before resigning in August.
Troye says she had growing misgivings that came to a head around the time demonstrators protesting the killing of George Floyd were forcibly cleared from Lafayette Square in front of the White House.
The moment, she told this column, “was so incredibly dangerous and offensive that to me it screamed of ‘autocracy’ and ‘dictator.’ I had heard discussions about the Insurrection Act. I know how close we came. I thought, ‘I just cannot get past it.’”
Troye is torn on the more recent moves by figures like Barr, Christie and her former boss, Pence.
On one hand, it is “important for these stories to be out there so people hear firsthand how dangerous this situation was,” she says.
But, on the other hand, “I have less sympathy for them, because I feel like they were going along with it through Election Day — and then the train goes off the tracks. But the train was going off the tracks before that — you could see it.”
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