Congressional Democrats recommended that criminal charges be brought against outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after she was ousted by President Donald Trump earlier this month.
Representative Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) and Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), ranking members of their respective Judiciary Committees, sent a letter to the Department of Justice, accusing Noem of lying to Congress during recent hearings.
“A number of her statements appear to violate criminal statutes prohibiting perjury and knowingly making false statements to Congress,” the letter reads. “After months of evading our Committees’ requests to testify in routine oversight hearings, Secretary Noem made a series of demonstrably false statements in a brazen attempt to undermine critical congressional oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.”
Noem will be out as DHS secretary as of March 31 and will be succeeded by Senator Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.).
The Democrats claim Noem perjured herself on four occasions during the hearing. According to the letter, Noem lied to lawmakers when she was asked: whether DHS follows court orders, whether special government employee Corey Lewandowski plays a role in awarding DHS contracts, whether DHS has actively detained U.S. citizens, and whether a $220 million contract for ads featuring Noem was approved through the standard competitive bidding process.
Senator John Kennedy (R., La.) grilled Noem over the ad contract, which was subcontracted to one of Noem’s political allies. Noem insisted in response that the contract had been approved through the standard competitive bidding process, which turned out to be incorrect. She also insisted that President Trump had personally approved the contact, which Trump later denied in comments to Reuters.
“Even if Secretary Noem was the one telling the truth about the President’s knowledge, and she may well have been, she flatly misrepresented that the contract had been subject to a competitive bid,” Durbin and Raskin wrote in the letter.
According to ProPublica, $77 million of the $220 million ad contract was awarded to People Who Think, an LLC owned by Jay Connaughton, who previously consulted for Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry’s gubernatorial campaign alongside Lewandowski.
Another $143 million of the total $220 million was awarded to Safe America Media, an entity established just days before the contract was awarded. That group then subcontracted a fraction of of that $143 million to a strategy firm owned by Ben Yoho, the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
Concerns about Lewandowski’s role at the Department of Homeland Security came to a head during Noem’s hearings — but questions about the longtime Trump ally’s influence within the agency have been simmering in the background since Noem first took charge of the agency, National Review reported earlier this month.
White House officials, lawmakers, and government contractors told NR that they have long suspected that Lewandowski and his political allies inside and outside of DHS are financially profiting from DHS contracts and multiple offices and committees on Capitol Hill are actively investigating the matter.
“Any claim that Secretary Noem committed perjury is categorically FALSE,” a DHS spokesperson told National Review in a statement.
If found guilty of making false statements to Congress, Noem could face a fine of up to $250,000 and spend up to five years in prison.
“While we have low expectations that you will pursue this matter given your partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice, we note that the statute of limitations for perjury and for knowingly and willfully making false statements to Congress is five years,” the letter reads.