Officials in the Trump administration are reportedly furious at Kristi Noem’s alleged lover after learning about his toe-curling side hustle.
Corey Lewandowski, 52, is a special government employee at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). By serving as the de facto chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Noem, 54, he has won the tongue-in-cheek job title of ‘Under Secretary’ over their rumored affair.
The former Donald Trump election adviser also charges companies and individuals as little as $50 for personalized video messages on Cameo—while he approves multibillion-dollar contracts, attends classified briefings, and terminates government workers, according to the Daily Mail. His “business videos” start at $500.
This has rankled DHS and State Department officials who say the side gig isn’t only a bad look, but also a potential security risk. One unnamed State Department official said the Cameo account—which allows anonymous users to submit custom instructions—was effectively an “unmonitored, for-hire communications channel” with someone that has unprecedented power within the government.
The official blasted the arrangement as “sheer institutional recklessness.”
“Corey is firing federal employees, signing off on billions in contracts, sitting in on classified meetings, and running operations across the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, all while maintaining what amounts to a public tender offer on his own credibility,” the official told the outlet.
Lewandowski’s Cameo account poses a “serious counterintelligence risk,” the official warned, because foreign intelligence services or corporations could probe for sensitive details or establish communication patterns with a senior DHS official “for fifty dollars, no questions asked.”
“This guy exercises more authority than most Senate-confirmed officials,” the State official added. “DHS isn’t a gig economy platform. National security isn’t pay per view either.”
A DHS official told the Mail that while Lewandowski’s special government employee status doesn’t require authorization for outside employment, “since he’s using his access to POTUS it may be a Hatch Act violation. The optics don’t look good at all.”
Lewandowski’s Cameo videos have ranged from birthday greetings to potty-training encouragement to paid advertisements for companies.
His last recorded Cameo video was sent on Halloween 2025, according to his online account, as federal workers faced the longest government shutdown in U.S. history without paychecks.
The Trump loyalist joined Cameo in 2019, when he announced the first 45 requests would be donated to families of fallen military and law enforcement officers. When the Mail asked which charities had received revenue from his videos since joining Homeland Security, Lewandowski did not respond.
In an email to the outlet, Lewandowski defended the videos as charity fundraising. “Do you have issues with donating money to charities??” he wrote.
His Cameo biography boasts that customers “frequently request Corey to roast their liberal friends, wish conservative-leaning loved ones a happy birthday, and encourage fellow patriots to keep fighting for the America First agenda.”
Reviews for Lewandowski’s videos were largely full of praise, with the exception of a couple one-star reviews from customers complaining that they hadn’t gotten what they paid for. “This loser didn’t say what I asked him to,” one unhappy customer complained, while another asked him to “try again and try to stay on script.” Another lamented that their video had “turned into a campaign ad halfway through.”
Lewandowski’s side hustle comes as his role at DHS faces mounting scrutiny. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that he sought a law-enforcement badge and a federally issued gun last year despite not having undergone training, a request that “rankled some senior staff at the agency.”
The effort was said to have been so contentious that a veteran ICE attorney was escorted from the building after refusing to sign off on the request and clashing with leadership.
Lewandowski and Noem also fired a Coast Guard pilot after they switched planes and her blanket wasn’t transferred—only to reinstate him when no replacement could fly them home, the Journal reported.
The pair have been traveling together aboard a luxury Boeing 737 MAX jet with a private cabin that DHS is leasing and expects to purchase for approximately $70 million—twice the cost of all seven other planes the department is acquiring for deportations, according to the Journal.
His special government employee designation technically limits his government service to 130 days per year while allowing him to maintain private-sector employment.
However, he has taken on what the Journal described as “a much more expansive role than the status typically allows, directing personnel and contracting and handling classified information.”
Given Lewandowski’s continuing business interests in the private sector, his role in awarding contracts has raised alarm bells inside the White House and DHS, the Journal reported. Several officials said contracts and grants are being awarded in an opaque and arbitrary manner.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS, the White House, and Lewandowski for comment.
