Kristi Noem is grateful to Elon Musk for ratting out her own staff.
Noem, 54, accused Department of Homeland Security employees of installing spyware on her devices and credited the tech billionaire with exposing them in an hour-long sitdown with MAGA podcaster Patrick Bet-David, released Thursday.
“I’ll tell you, Patrick, even from the time I came into this office, it was—Elon and his team were extremely helpful to me,” she said. “They helped me identify that some of my own employees in my department had downloaded software on my phone and my laptop to spy on me, to record our meetings.”
“They had done that to several of the politicals,” she continued. “And so we ended up bringing in people, and that was something that, if you didn’t have those technology experts here in the department looking at all of our laptops and our phones and recognizing that kind of software, it would still be happening today.”
Noem did not provide evidence to back her claims. When reached for comment, the DHS said it would let Noem’s post “speak for itself.”
The cosplay-loving Homeland Security secretary said the concerned staffers were “brought in, polygraphed, fired.”
“We have to sweep my office on a regular basis to make sure that there’s not listening devices in it,” she said. “It was very prevalent, and I think that what happened at this department was individuals had gotten away with, for years, spying on people who were politically appointed and trying to stop an administration that was coming in and trying to fix this country and keep us safe.”
Noem also said she discovered a secure room—called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility—”that had secret files that nobody knew about on some of these most controversial topics.” She said those documents have been turned over to attorneys.
Her podcast comments about the deep state, shared on Noem’s official DHS account on X, were quickly mocked by the House Committee on Homeland Security on the platform.
The committee wrote in all caps, “ELON FOUND DEEP STATE BUGS IN MY PHONE! THEY FOUND SECRET ROOMS!!”
Just months into her tenure as Homeland Security secretary, Noem gained notoriety for her preoccupation with polygraph tests. Last May, The Wall Street Journal reported that Homeland Security staff were subjected to polygraph tests as part of a crackdown on leaks to the media.
Earlier this week, a class action lawsuit accused Noem and her agency of using surveillance technology to track observers of immigration operations in Maine. Rep. Shontel Brown, a ranking member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on cybersecurity, has demanded answers on ICE’s use of surveillance tools.
