WASHINGTON — Corey Lewandowski fired a Coast Guard pilot for leaving Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s blanket on a plane — but was forced to rehire them upon realizing there was nobody else to fly the party home, according to a stunning new report.
Lewandowski, an unpaid special government employee who unofficially acts as chief of staff for Noem — with whom he’s had a years-long affair — has overseen a reign of terror over department workers since President Trump took office last year.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Noem had to switch planes during an official trip due to a maintenance issue, but her blanket was not moved to the replacement aircraft.
Lewandowski fired the pilot and told them to find a commercial flight home when they reached their destination, only to reinstate them due to the lack of a backup.
The report did not specify when or where the incident occurred.
A spokesperson for DHS did not deny the story to the Journal, but said Noem has “made personnel decisions to deliver excellence.”
The account was one of a number of anecdotes of vicious in-fighting involving Noem and Lewandowski, who briefly appeared on thin ice with President Trump after the fatal shooting last month of two anti-deportation activists in Minneapolis.
That led Trump to send Noem’s great rival, border czar Tom Homan, to Minnesota to restore order. On Thursday, Homan announced the end of the immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, citing improved cooperation with local officials.
As a special government employee, Lewandowski technically is capped at working 130 days per year, but has managed to creatively stretch that timeframe by avoiding being logged arriving at headquarters — including by hitching rides in Noem’s motorcade, for which campus gates open without badge checks.
Noem lives in the former Coast Guard Commandant’s residence in Southwest Washington.
While the Journal reported that Lewandowski “spends time at the house,” multiple sources inside and close to the administration tell The Post it’s understood that Lewandowski lives with Noem — “if living means spending nights regularly,” as one source put it.
Lewandowski apparently is not shy about referring to Noem in intimate terms, as another source recalled him speaking last year about the need to find apparel for the secretary that would flatter a woman with, in Lewandowski’s words, “big tits.”
Noem and Lewandowski have reacted to prior negative stories by vowing in social media statements to find, fire, and prosecute subordinates, including those who recently brought attention to the slow pace of new border wall construction.
Noem’s husband, Bryon, sells crop insurance in their home state of South Dakota, while Lewandowski’s wife, Alison, who lost her first husband in the 9/11 attacks, lives with their four children in New Hampshire.
Lewandowski’s special government employee status also allows him to bypass financial disclosure laws, raising eyebrows due to his role in steering federal contract funds.
He claimed in August 2025 that he had logged just 69 days of work under Noem — and was able to stretch the remaining 61 through the end of 2025. (The 130-day rule resets each calendar year.)
US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott also told Lewandowski last year that he would no longer take orders from him because his 130-day window was up — prompting the ouster of Scott’s chief of staff and forced resignation of his deputy in apparent retaliation, the Journal reported.
Trump is well-known for enjoying presiding over a team of rivals competing for his approval, and sources told The Post they believe Noem is likely to remain in her position at least through the midterm elections — after which she might get “promoted” elsewhere.
Several sources say the president knows about the affair between Noem and Lewandowski, with one person close to Trump saying he “frequently” tells a story about seeing the two take sips from the same can of soda.
“You can’t do that, it’s pretty obvious! You can’t do that, everyone’s going to know!” the germophobic president is quoted as mockingly saying as he entertains listeners with the account.
“That’s his go-to story,” this source said. “He says that frequently about them.”
Why the relationship — or the couple’s brutal treatment of internal rivals — has been tolerated remains a mystery, though Trump has repeatedly expressed a soft spot for Lewandowski, whom he fired from his 2016 campaign for manhandling then-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields during a press scrum.
“I’m surprised that they’ve kind of let this fester as long as it has,” wondered one person close to the administration.
“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,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The president continues to have full confidence in the secretary.”
No comments:
Post a Comment