The largest bombshells about Kristi Noem and her prime aide Corey Lewandowski from the Wall Street Journal’s expose | EUROtoday

A bombshell report has alleged that the Department of Homeland Security is in a state of “constant chaos” underneath the management of Secretary Kristi Noem and her prime adviser Corey Lewandowski.

The Wall Street Journal cites sources throughout the division who’re extremely vital of Noem’s reign and paints an unflattering portrait of the secretary as a politician who has sought to “burnish her personal stardom at every turn.”

Noem has “staged a headline grabbing immigration crackdown while sidelining rivals and dissenters,” the newspaper states, noting the secretary’s penchant for posing in agency-branded flak jackets and caps and bearing weapons as props “all with an eye to her style, with TV-ready hair and makeup.”

It stories that President Donald Trump has entertained calls to fireside Noem and Lewandowski amid discontent about their administration of the division, though he has to date kept away from doing so.

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin advised The Independent: “Mr Lewandowski serves as an advisor to the secretary. The secretary, like all previous secretaries, has various senior advisors. This department doesn’t waste time with salacious, baseless gossip – we have actual work to do keeping the American homeland and its citizens safe. Something the last administration failed to do for four years.”

A departmental spokesperson beforehand challenged quite a lot of the factors raised by the WSJ. Here’s a have a look at among the key claims made in opposition to the secretary in its report.

Trump ‘uncomfortable’ with Noem and Lewandowski’s relationship

It has lengthy been rumored that the secretary and her prime adviser, each of whom are married, have engaged in an extramarital affair. They have repeatedly denied the allegations and the secretary has referred to as them a “disgusting lie.”

The WSJ however revives them and stories that “the close relationship had already made Trump and his top advisers uncomfortable,” including that the president had rejected the concept of Lewandowski serving as Noem’s chief of employees “due to reports of a romantic relationship between the two – which he has continued to bring up, officials say.”

The newspaper stories that Noem moved right into a government-owned waterfront home on a navy base in Washington, D.C., offered for the top of the Coast Guard, after tabloid pictures of Lewandowski “showed him going back and forth between his apartment and Noem’s across the street last year.”

A DHS spokesperson advised the WSJ that Noem had moved into the home for safety causes and mentioned she pays lease on the property.

Rivalry with Tom Homan over air time

The report additionally alleges a heated private rivalry between Noem and Trump’s border czar, who was despatched in to Minnesota late final month to take cost of Operation Metro Surge following public uproar over the deadly shootings of U.S. residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal brokers. He has despatched 700 brokers dwelling and is now winding it down solely.

“Noem routinely berated staff if she saw Homan on TV and kept track of both their appearances to make sure she was on TV more than him,” the WSJ stories.

“On at least one occasion, she asked aides to ensure she drew a bigger crowd at a conference than Homan, who was speaking on a different day.”

A DHS spokesperson advised the WSJ the declare was false.

The newspaper provides that Noem and Homan hardly ever communicate and that he has complained to the White House about her management of DHS.

Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt has insisted, nonetheless, that the president retains full confidence in Noem, saying not too long ago: “President Trump and Secretary Noem have ensured the most secure border in our nation’s history, and our homeland is undoubtedly safer today than it was when the president took office last year.”

Fallout from Minneapolis capturing movies

The WSJ observes that Noem and Lewandowski have been on a “rehabilitation tour” for the reason that killing of Pretti on January 24, holding disaster talks with Trump within the Oval Office and staging non-ICE-related occasions in Florida and Miami, specializing in airport safety and the U.S.-Mexico border wall respectively.

It additionally stories that the duo “berated” Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons final month over the deluge of social media movies pouring out of Minneapolis in response to the deadly capturing of the ICU nurse.

That got here regardless of their having beforehand pushed for brokers to movie dramatic arrests of alleged undocumented migrants on town’s streets with one eye on producing thrilling on-line content material.

“The president hated the continued stream of videos,” Lyons was reportedly advised. “They demanded that he draw up a new plan for ICE to carry out targeted enforcement, an approach Lyons had been advocating all along, according to ICE officials, but that the pair had previously eschewed.”

A misplaced blanket will get a Coast Guard pilot fired

Among the stranger controversies alleged is one claiming that Noem had ordered a Coast Guard pilot to be fired after she was compelled to modify from one airplane to a different due to a upkeep problem, which brought about a favourite blanket to be left behind amid the confusion.

The pilot was abruptly advised he had been dismissed over the blunder and ordered to take a business flight dwelling, solely to then be suggested that he had, actually, been reinstated as a result of nobody else was accessible to proceed the journey, in response to the WSJ.

The DHS spokesperson didn’t deal with the incident however claimed as a substitute that the secretary has “made personnel decisions to deliver excellence.”

Lewandowski’s goals of proudly owning a gun and a badge

Another weird declare made within the report is that Noem’s prime adviser “made it known to top ICE officials that he wanted to be issued a law enforcement badge and a federally-issued gun,” regardless of his not having undertaken the required coaching to advantage them.

When the administration was getting ready to herald Tom Feeley, a former prime ICE official in New York, as its new director, he was requested by Lewandowski if he could be keen to problem him with the props, the newspaper writes. Feeley mentioned no and was subsequently missed for the function.

ICE lawyer Ken Padilla, in flip, reportedly refused the identical request and was positioned on administrative go away earlier than being demoted to a job with FEMA.

Lewandowski in the end received his gun, the WSJ stories, however solely after it was allegedly signed off by an ICE director’s autopen – an ironic element given Trump’s mockery and conspiracy theorizing over his predecessor Joe Biden’s use of such a tool.

The DHS spokesperson denied the newspaper’s model of occasions, saying Lewandowski made no such efforts to safe a gun or signed paperwork and mentioned that he didn’t communicate to Feeley and that Padilla was placed on go away for different causes.

But comparable retaliatory ways have been additionally reported within the case of Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, whom Noem and Lewandowski allegedly tried to pressure out by reassigning his chief of employees and pressuring his deputy to resign.

Scott himself is a Senate appointee and thus out of the secretary’s jurisdiction.