The final straw for Trump was a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which showed bipartisan frustration with Noem’s leadership. GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma will replace her.
Louisiana Republican John Kennedy accused Noem of putting President Trump in a ‘terribly awkward spot’ when Homeland Security spent $220 million on a TV ad campaign that featured her prominently. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg News
Noem also told Kennedy that Trump had approved of her running the ads. “It’s hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President here’s some ads I cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that,” Kennedy responded.
DHS’s top watchdog is looking into the ad contract, according to people familiar with the investigation. That inspector general is conducting an audit of the contract awarding process at the department.
Corey Lewandowski, a top adviser to Noem who managed Trump’s 2016 campaign and has maintained a close relationship with the president, had a contentious conversation with Trump on Tuesday following Noem’s testimony, White House officials said.
In her testimony at a second hearing Wednesday, before the House Judiciary Committee, Noem admitted that one of the contracts for the ads didn’t go through a competitive bidding process, contradicting her Senate testimony the previous day. Noem was grilled in both hearings for part of the funding going to a subcontractor with ties to her outgoing spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
Trump had previously publicly defended Noem, despite widespread criticism of her since the killing of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis in January.
Noem had claimed Pretti committed “domestic terrorism.” In several heated moments during her congressional hearings, Noem declined to retract her characterization of Pretti or apologize for it.
For months, department officials have been frustrated with Noem and Lewandowski, who is employed as a special government employee but has amassed enough power to play a key role in spending, policy and personnel decisions. Some have also pointed to a pattern of Noem ignoring or playing down national-security concerns, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Noem made herself the face of Trump’s increasingly unpopular mass deportation campaign, and her chaotic leadership style of the sprawling department came under scrutiny over the past year. The Journal detailed last month how Noem has attempted to burnish her personal stardom, staging a headline-grabbing immigration crackdown while retaliating against rivals and dissenters. Democrats in Congress are currently withholding DHS funding in exchange for changes to the department’s enforcement methods.
Meanwhile, Lewandowski and Noem, who are both married, have publicly denied the reports of an affair, but officials have said they do little to hide their relationship inside the department. The pair have lately been using a luxury 737 MAX jet, with a private cabin in back, for their travel around the country. DHS is leasing the plane but is in the process of acquiring it for approximately $70 million.
During the congressional hearings, Noem said the jet was being refurbished to remove the bedroom, and the jet would save the taxpayers money.
She was also repeatedly questioned on her decision to put any department spending larger than $100,000 under an approval process that has held up contracts across DHS. The department is flush with recently appropriated billions from the president’s major legislative package last year, the “one big, beautiful bill.” 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 has previously reported.
Noem inaccurately claimed during her Senate testimony that Lewandowski didn’t play a role in the contracting process. She also said the department closely tracked the work of special government employees, who are only permitted to work 130 days a year. Department officials say Lewandowski is always by Noem’s side and has exceeded the 130 day limit. Last year, the White House Counsel’s Office opened an inquiry into Lewandowski’s potential abuse of the special government employee role, the Journal previously reported.
Noem’s removal also comes days after the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security alerted Congress that the agency’s leaders had “systematically obstructed” its work, including in a federal criminal investigation, the Journal has reported.
Lawmakers were also demanding answers to a separate letter from the inspector general referring to a classified report that found Noem’s policy change that allowed passengers to pass through screening checkpoints with their shoes on was creating “significant” security risks.
