Kristi Noem has iced out one of her top officials from preparations for her Senate Judiciary Committee grilling over fears he would refuse to use her preferred narrative, the Daily Beast has learned.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, 54, is due to testify Tuesday about the fatal January shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both 37.
But instead of leaning on the head of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency that oversees the Border Patrol agents who fired the shots that killed VA ICU nurse Pretti, Noem has excluded him from providing briefing materials, according to two DHS insiders.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott—a camera-shy career law enforcement official confirmed by the Senate last June to lead the 67,000-strong agency—was left out of the standard pre-hearing “blast” seeking briefing material from the 22 DHS agencies, two well-placed Trump administration sources said.
For any Cabinet secretary, these briefings are the backbone of sworn testimony and shape what they say under oath.
On this occasion, the commissioner whose agents fired the lethal shots in Pretti’s Jan. 24 killing will apparently not have a say in Noem’s answers. Instead, they will be provided by her loyalists, in a major snub to Scott that also casts doubt on the veracity of Noem’s upcoming testimony.
One source told the Beast: “In preparation for Noem appearing in front of the committee, her senior aides put out a ‘blast’ to the agencies overseen by DHS. This is effectively an urgent memo that says, ‘Give me something about what you have been doing in your area.’
“Each department would then have its staff work tirelessly to provide a detailed briefing paper on any major issues they have overseen, which would then be distilled to a few bullet points and some supporting detail, in case she is asked about it.”
Another source said, “Scott has not been included in Noem’s briefing process,” explaining that he “is a proper law-enforcement official,” and Noem “apparently believes he would not provide the narrative she wants.”
“The outsiders who have been planted in CBP’s leadership office will be crafting whatever narrative is going to be provided to Noem, as regards CBP,” they added.
“If I were to guess, I’d say that she will avoid saying much about CBP other than flowery numbers regarding drug busts on the border and the border wall.”
In comments to the Daily Beast, a DHS spokesperson denied these claims and said Scott “was NOT barred from helping Secretary Noem prepare for her congressional hearing.”
“This is one team, and we have one fight to secure the homeland. President Trump has a brilliant, tenacious team led by Secretary Noem to deliver on the American people’s mandate to remove criminal illegal aliens from this country. There is only one page: the President’s page. Everyone’s on the same page,” the spokesperson said.
But both DHS insiders pushed back, with one source calling the denial “expected” and the other saying, “They will lie to ensure any conflicting narrative is stamped out.”
Scott, who takes a low-profile approach in stark contrast to Noem, oversees the $19 billion agency and was confirmed 51–46 to bring operational credibility after months of turmoil.
His exclusion escalates an internal war reported by the Washington Examiner in January, which described an “evil” effort by Noem and her rumored lover and senior aide Corey Lewandowski, 52, to pressure him out.
During that period, Border Patrol’s controversial “commander-at-large,” Gregory Bovino, was given an unusual direct reporting line to Noem and Lewandowski and told to go around Scott as he implemented his aggressive “turn and burn” enforcement style.
Bovino—who was ruled by a judge to have lied to a court about his hardline tactics and mocked for his Nazi-style clothing—became the public face of Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive.
But amid public anger over Pretti’s killing, he was then sidelined by Trump, damaging Noem’s standing with the president, as the Beast reported in late January.
That Scott is nowhere near as widely known to the public as the publicity-obsessed Bovino shows the stark differences between their approaches to immigration enforcement, CBP insiders say.
Noem will presumably be hoping Tuesday’s Senate appearance is an improvement on her last committee showing. That combative affair in front of the House Homeland Security Committee ended abruptly when she stormed out after tense exchanges with lawmakers.
Committee hearings have become a flashpoint for Trump’s beleaguered administration.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chaotic appearance before the same committee on the Epstein files in February saw her hurl pre-written jabs at senators rather than providing substantive answers.
