Pence’s former lead coronavirus job drive aide slams Trump and endorses Biden in new video

Olivia Troye, who was a homeland safety adviser to Pence and his lead staffer on the White Home’s coronavirus job drive, charged within the two-minute video that Trump failed to guard the American public as a result of he solely cared about himself and getting reelected. Troye’s criticism is especially placing due to her function engaged on the coronavirus job drive, which Pence leads.”In direction of the center of February, we knew it wasn’t a matter of if Covid would develop into a giant pandemic right here, it was a matter of when,” mentioned Troye, who left the White Home in late July. “However the President did not wish to hear that, as a result of his largest concern was that we had been in an election yr, and the way was this going to have an effect on what he thought-about to be his report of success?” At one coronavirus job drive assembly, Troye claimed that Trump urged “perhaps this Covid factor is an efficient factor.” “I do not like shaking arms with folks. I haven’t got to shake arms with these disgusting folks,” Troye claimed Trump mentioned on the assembly.The White Home responded swiftly to Troye’s allegations by accusing her of being a disgruntled worker who did not increase objections whereas on employees.Trump instructed reporters on Thursday night that he didn’t know Troye, however claimed she had been goaded into making her assertion.”(T)he folks come up with her and say, ‘For instance some dangerous issues about Donald Trump,’ ” Trump mentioned. He added, “Each time someone leaves authorities — 99% of the time I am not going to know these folks. They usually go away on a foundation of just about prefer it’s a private factor with me.”Pence additionally slammed his former aide.”I have not learn her feedback in any element, but it surely reads to me like another disgruntled worker who’s left the White Home and now has determined to play politics throughout an election yr,” Pence mentioned of Troye, in response to a query from a reporter. “I feel my employees has indicated that she made no feedback like that when she was serving on our crew right here on the White Home coronavirus job drive.” Pence added he “could not be extra happy with the work we have performed all alongside the way in which and the management that President Trump has supplied.”White Home deputy press secretary Judd Deere mentioned, “Outdoors of usually watching the White Home Coronavirus Taskforce from the overflow employees room, this disgruntled former detailee was by no means in personal conferences with the President and her assertions don’t have any foundation in actuality and are flat out inaccurate.”And Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Pence’s nationwide safety adviser, mentioned in an announcement Troye was “disgruntled that her element was minimize brief.””Ms. Troye immediately reported to me, and by no means as soon as throughout her element did she each categorical any concern concerning the Administration’s response to the Coronavirus to anybody in her chain of command,” Kellogg mentioned.Troye’s video was launched by Republican Voters In opposition to Trump, a GOP group searching for to defeat Trump in November. Troye has additionally joined a brand new anti-Trump group fashioned by Republicans, the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform, or REPAIR, which says it is searching for to “refocus the Republican Occasion’s priorities, and restore the American republic.”The group introduced greater than two dozen advisers on Thursday, together with Troye and several other ex-Trump officers who labored within the Division of Homeland Safety: former DHS common counsel John Mitnick, former assistant secretary Elizabeth Neumann and Miles Taylor, who was chief of employees to former Homeland Safety Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Anthony Scaramucci, who was briefly White Home communications director, and Josh Venable, who was chief of employees to Training Secretary Betsy DeVos, are additionally a part of the group.Taylor, the group’s co-founder and a CNN contributor, mentioned that REPAIR is linked to Republican Voters In opposition to Trump, however whereas that group is targeted on defeating Trump, REPAIR just isn’t endorsing Biden and is seeking to what comes after Trump leaves workplace.”We would be the largest group up to now of former Trump administration officers who’ve come collectively to say we have to transfer previous Donald Trump and transfer the get together and the nation past his presidency,” Taylor mentioned.Republicans criticizing Trump is nothing new, and there have been GOP voices attacking him since his 2016 marketing campaign started. Republican-led teams just like the Lincoln Venture at the moment are actively campaigning towards the President in 2020. However in latest months there have been a rising variety of officers who labored within the Trump administration and subsequently criticized the President. Former nationwide safety adviser John Bolton’s e book gave an unflattering portrait of Trump, and each former Protection Secretary James Mattis and former Director of Nationwide Intelligence Dan Coats supplied brutal assessments of Trump in Bob Woodward’s new e book “Rage.” A number of Republicans have gone even additional and endorsed Biden, together with Scaramucci, Neumann and Taylor.Troye, who took a job on the Nationwide Insurance coverage Crime Bureau when she left the Trump administration, endorsed Biden within the video launched Thursday. She has labored at a number of federal companies all through her profession on counterterrorism and intelligence points, together with for the vice chairman since 2018. She mentioned that she determined to go away the administration as a result of she felt her work wasn’t making a distinction due to Trump.”Does it matter,” she mentioned, “as a result of regardless of how onerous you’re employed and what you do, the President goes to do one thing that’s detrimental to maintaining Individuals protected, which is why you signed up for this function?”In her farewell e-mail to colleagues, which was obtained by CNN, Troye wrote she had “witnessed firsthand how devoted and dedicated all of you could have been to doing the proper factor.””Thanks for entrusting me to be your rock throughout this difficult time. I’ll all the time be rooting for you realizing that you’ll proceed to struggle the nice struggle,” she mentioned.This story has been up to date with remark from the White Home.CNN’s Nikki Caravajl contributed to this report.