The “knives are out” for fired Kristi Noem and her rumored lover, with a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) insider warning that they face investigations—and possibly worse—over their controversial tenure at the agency.
Homeland Security Secretary Noem, 54, was ousted last Thursday—the first Cabinet member fired in Donald Trump’s second term—after a two-day Capitol Hill grilling turned into a catalog of disaster.
Noem floundered when put on the spot over the fatal shooting of two American protesters by federal agents during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown, a questionable no-bid $220 million ad campaign that featured her heavily, and DHS’s plan to open massive warehouses to hold migrants.
She was humiliated by the outsized role played by Corey Lewandowski, 52, her unpaid adviser and long-rumored paramour—which included being asked about their use of a $70 million plane with a bedroom in the back—and by questions now being asked about a massive and apparently useless ICE vehicle contract.
The source was blunt about the pair’s prospects, on “the contracts especially,” telling the Daily Beast on Monday: “Expect scrutiny on the warehouse contracts, the ads, the plane purchasing, the cars, everything.”
The insider added: “If the rumors circling Washington are true, Democrats will want hearings and maybe even prosecutions. And there’s going to be no Republican with a brain who comes to their defense.”
Their overall assessment was blunt: “They’re f---ed.”
After two days of bruising congressional hearings, Trump moved Noem into a newly created post as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas and tapped Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace her, effective March 31, with Lewandowski expected to follow her out of the building. Both are married to others and have denied the affair.
Noem was said to have angered Trump by claiming that he gave the go-ahead for the self-deportation ad blitz, but which Trump later claimed he “never knew anything about.”
Those advertising contracts are now in Democratic crosshairs. The campaign was awarded to GOP-linked companies People Who Think and Safe America Media without competitive bidding, the same two firms that landed a separate $100 million ICE recruitment campaign through the same process.
ProPublica found that a subcontractor, the Strategy Group—whose chief executive, Ben Yoho, is married to former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, both of whom are Noem and Lewandowski allies—also received a share of the funds, prompting one eminent federal contracting expert to declare the arrangement “corrupt.”
A further DHS PR contract was posted with a bid window of just 31 hours and explicitly required applicants to have “an established track record of promoting Trump administration policies”—language the Project on Government Oversight’s general counsel Scott Amey told The Guardian was the first he had ever seen in federal procurement.
Democratic Sens. Peter Welch and Richard Blumenthal have since written to the firms involved asking whether Noem, Lewandowski, or any other DHS employee financially benefited.
The warehouse deals are similarly exposed. As the Beast reported in January, DHS drew up plans for seven regional detention complexes—each designed for between 5,000 and 10,000 migrants—plus 16 smaller feeder sites, in what officials compared to an Amazon-style logistics network for human beings. The plan provoked revolts in conservative communities including Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Social Circle, Georgia, ultimately forcing Noem to scrap the Merrimack facility entirely.
Then there are the ICE cars, around 2,500 dark navy pickup trucks and SUVs—emblazoned with the ICE logo and the slogan “Defend the Homeland”—which the Beast first reported last August had been purchased despite agents’ explicit warnings that branded vehicles would make them targets.
Those warnings proved prescient. It emerged this week that they were ordered by Noem’s then-28-year-old ICE deputy director, Madison Sheahan, now 29. That fleet reportedly now sits idle in garages and detention centers across the country because officers say they cannot drive marked vehicles during enforcement operations without alerting entire neighborhoods.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Noem and Lewandowski had been routinely traveling together aboard a leased Boeing 737 MAX with a private rear cabin, which DHS was in the process of acquiring with $70 million in taxpayer money. NBC News published interior photographs showing a queen bed, showers, a kitchen, four large flat-screen TVs, and a bar.
The sharpest legal risk, however, may stem from what Noem said under oath about Lewandowski’s contract authority. When Connecticut Sen. Blumenthal asked whether he had “a role in approving contracts,” Noem replied, “No.”
But internal DHS records reviewed by ProPublica show Lewandowski—signing off as “chief advisor”—personally approved a multimillion-dollar equipment contract last summer, with his signature routinely appearing on internal routing sheets as the final step before Noem’s own.
Under federal law, knowingly making a false statement to Congress is a crime. Blumenthal is now pushing for a perjury investigation.
“Her firing doesn’t absolve her or relieve her of potential liability for perjury,” he has said, “and we are going to pursue an investigation of the evidence that she lied, because it relates to corruption in the administration.”
The Daily Beast has contacted representatives for Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski for comment, as well as the DHS.
