I didn't know what it was, but it was enough to wake me up. Miles Taylor: It was sort of a chirping, somewhere between what you would think is a cricket or sort of a digital sound. The sound that woke Miles Taylor is a common experience reported by dozens of Americans stricken overseas. I'd just become deputy chief of staff of the department, taking on some additional sensitive issues at DHS, and woke up in my apartment that night, a row house on Capitol Hill, to a really strange sound. Miles Taylor: It was late one night in April 2018. Taylor told us he was hit with the same symptoms described by Olivia Troye. Miles Taylor: Your job is to oversee the roughly 250,000 men and women of the department that conduct a range of missions from aviation security to border security to cybersecurity. Taylor was deputy chief of staff and, later, chief of staff of the Trump administration Department of Homeland Security. Those "others" include Miles Taylor, also speaking for the first time. And similar to what others have reported. John Bolton: That was a very debilitating attack. The former official sent us a note saying that, more than a year later, "I'm still recovering and suffering from headaches and other symptoms, and have been diagnosed with two other medical conditions that are believed to be the result of the attack…" He's still an outpatient at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
And just a general inability to function.īolton told us the official said he couldn't speak or think clearly. John Bolton: They had disorientation and ringing in their ears. But he described the incident to a close colleague, John Bolton, former national security adviser. That former official, whose incident was first reported in the New Yorker, asked us not to name him. A senior member of the National Security Council says he was stricken in November 2020, on the same steps by the West Wing. And do you really want to admit you're sick? Do you want to come forward and tell someone that, especially as a member of the intelligence community? I think I'm still processing all of it and thinking about, like, how many more people are like me who felt this. Olivia Troye: There is a human aspect of it of shame. After this interview she reported for the first time. Troye says she didn't report the episodes because she didn't want to believe she was seriously ill and she worried what it would mean to her security clearance and career. And I felt like I was just gonna fall right into the ground. There was sort of- it was like I had a depth perception issue where I couldn't figure out where the ground was. But this time it was very much the feeling of vertigo and dizziness. Olivia Troye: It was a similar sensation. You've gotta find your ground again and steady yourself."
I was unsteady, I was, I felt nauseous, I was somewhat disoriented, and I was just, I remember thinking, "OK you gotta-don't fall down the stairs. Olivia Troye: But it was like this piercing feeling on the side of my head, it was like, I remember it was on the right side of my head and I got like, vertigo. In the summer of 2019, she was descending stairs, toward the White House, when she felt she had been physically struck. At the White House, she worked in the 19th century Eisenhower Executive Office Building beside the West Wing. She had served in the Pentagon, deployed to Iraq, served in the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center. Olivia Troye was homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. Olivia Troye: I covered any and all emerging threats, homeland security incidents domestically, so I covered whether it was from mass shootings to hurricanes, natural disasters… They were responsible for helping to manage threats to national security. The former officials you are about to meet are revealing their experiences for the first time. Incidents have been reported in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, but our reporting has found senior national security officials who say they were stricken in Washington and on the grounds of the White House.
Who might be targeting Americans and why are unknown. The CIA, FBI and State Department are investigating a theory that some of these officials were injured by an unseen weapon. government officials overseas and their families have reported sudden, unexplained, brain injuries with symptoms of vertigo, confusion and memory loss.