Bombshell Reports Show Trump Allies Got Rich Under Kristi Noem’s DHS

The Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem turned into an ATM for Republican operatives hoping to make a buck off of multimillion-dollar contracts.

Two companies with ties to Kristi Noem’s inner circle raked in millions of dollars from government contracts, Politico reported Thursday.

Safe America Media, which was formed just eight days before it received a massive $220 million ad contract, received at least $15.2 million from a 12 percent commission, according to an internal DHS memo and three people familiar with contracts. The second firm, People Who Think, received at least $7.7 million from its 10 percent commission on a portion of the $220 million, according to the memo. The memo noted that there was only a “limited competition” for the contracts, due to an “urgent and compelling need,” and that the commission rates were beneath industry standard.

Safe America Media LLC then subcontracted Strategy Group, a media company headed by the husband of Tricia McLaughlin, who served as a spokesperson for the DHS. The outgoing secretary was reportedly put in touch with the agency by Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s former adviser and Noem’s rumored beau.

McLaughlin said that Safe America Media was reportedly selected for the contract because of the men who ran it: veteran GOP media operative Mike McElwain and his top ad maker, Patrick McCarthy. The duo have ties to a firm that did extensive media buying for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. People Who Think was co-founded by Jay Connaughton, who worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign. The firm worked on a campaign for Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry that also hired Lewandowski and Strategy Group.

The flashing signs indicating corruption don’t stop there.

Lewandowski asked the country’s largest private prison company for bribes in return for receiving contracts from the DHS, according to an exclusive report Thursday from NBC News.

During the presidential transition, Lewandowski told George Zoley, the founder and executive chairman of GEO Group, that he wanted payment in return for fostering DHS contracts with the company, a senior DHS official and three people familiar with their discussion told NBC News. At the time, Zoley didn’t want anything to do with the deal.

Months later, after Lewandowski had officially secured a gig as a “special government employee” and top adviser to Noem, Zoley offered to put him on retainer and pay a recurring consulting fee, two industry sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. This time, it was Lewandowski who balked. He wanted to be paid in proportion to the contracts GEO Group secured from DHS. Zoley declined again.

Within weeks of that meeting, Lewandowski told a senior DHS official not to award any more contracts to GEO Group, the senior official told NBC News. GEO Group eventually received a new $121 million contract with DHS in December 2025. GEO Group already held multiple federal contracts worth a total of $1 billion per year.

It’s not clear that Lewandowski received any money for securing government contracts—but it seems he certainly tried. His spokesperson denied that these interactions ever took place.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard had her past quotes against war on Iran broadcast at a House intelligence hearing—and was asked why they contradict her current statements.

Democratic Representative Ami Bera put Gabbard in the hot seat when he highlighted her warning on the House floor following Trump’s killing of Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

At the time, Gabbard had decried President Trump’s killing of Soleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war that President Trump took,” and said that it would make brutal U.S. forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “look like a picnic.”

“Director Gabbard, do you still believe that strikes against Iran that don’t have congressional authorization constitute an illegal and unconstitutional act of war?” Bera asked.

“The cost of war weighs very heavily upon me and my colleagues here.... My own personal and political views, as I mentioned earlier—I was asked and required by Congress and by the president in this role as the director of national intelligence to check those views at the door to ensure that the intelligence assessments are not colored by my personal views,” Gabbard replied.

“Do you still believe that war with Iran would be so costly and devastating that it would ‘make our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic’?” Bera asked, quoting Gabbard again.

“Once again, in this role, it is essential that I do not allow any of my personal views on any issues to color or bias the intelligence reporting that we deliver to you and to the president.”

Gabbard spent much of the hearing trying to separate herself from her past statements, while refusing to criticize Trump’s war directly.

“Director Gabbard … there is no imminent threat of nuclear breakout,” Bera pointed out earlier in the hearing. “Did you deliver that assessment to the president?”

“I have delivered the intelligence community’s assessments to the president,” she replied, refusing to elaborate further.

It’s obvious that Gabbard believes we should not be at war with Iran right now. If that’s the case, she should make like her colleague Joe Kent and write that resignation letter.

In response to skyrocketing oil prices as a result of the war with Iran, the Trump administration is considering lifting sanctions on the country it is currently bombing.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business Thursday morning that “we had a break-the-glass plan across the administration, and at Treasury we unsanctioned Russian oil.”

“In the coming days, we may un-sanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water,” Bessent added, claiming that their oil would amount to about “10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out that would have all gone to China.”

Iranian oil has been sanctioned in some form since 1979, and the idea that the Trump administration would consider easing sanctions while starting a war with Iran seems counterintuitive, giving the country an economic lifeline. On Wednesday, the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Venezuelan oil, and last week, it eased sanctions on Russian oil despite the country’s ongoing war with Ukraine.

Does the White House have any long-term plans for its war with Iran? Trump was clearly caught off guard by Iran’s closure and mining of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical choke point in the Persian Gulf where much of the world’s oil flows, and by Iran’s decision to attack oil facilities of U.S. allies in the region.

Last year, the Trump administration chose to decommission several of its anti-mine ships, and also fired oil and gas experts from the State Department. Both moves have backfired, as the ships would be critical to help clear the strait and the experts could have helped prepare for this current oil crisis. Now the White House has been left scrambling to avert an economic crisis.

This story has been updated.

Senator Markwayne Mullin has secured the votes he needed to advance to a final floor vote in the upper chamber, all thanks to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.

Fetterman differed from his colleagues in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Thursday, voting alongside Republicans to advance Mullin’s nomination to the Senate floor.

The final committee tally was 8–7. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Rand Paul joined Democrats in rejecting Mullin’s appointment.

Fetterman has displayed a penchant for Trumpian politics since he moved to Washington, despite the fact that he ran on the progressive ticket. Since Fetterman entered office in 2023, he has sided with Republicans dozens of times, frequently leveraging his position to advance Donald Trump’s agenda. He also voted to confirm several of Trump’s Cabinet selections, including the last DHS chief, Kristi Noem, who was transferred to work in an unknown section of the government following a string of embarrassing scandals.

“In January, I called on the president to fire Noem—and he did,” Fetterman wrote in an X post Thursday, addressing his vote. “I truly approached the confirmation of my colleague and friend, Senator Mullin, with an open-mind.

“We need a leader at DHS. We must reopen DHS,” he continued. “My AYE is rooted in a strong committed, constructive working relationship with Senator Mullin for our nation’s security.”

Mullin has had his own tumultuous history in the Senate. In 2023, the Oklahoma Republican tried to brawl with International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. The hostile exchange was halted by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, but the fallout continued in the days after as Mullin refused to back down from the violence he started. Speaking with podcasters and broadcasters, Mullin invariably escalated the conflict, claiming he would “100 percent” bite and even duel the union boss.

He’s also promoted violence against and attacked his colleagues, spurring accusations that Mullin suffers from severe anger issues.

In a fiery exchange during his committee confirmation hearing Wednesday, Paul raked up Mullin’s reaction to a November 2017 incident in which the Kentucky lawmaker was attacked by his neighbor, leaving him with several broken ribs.

Paul charged that Mullin “went on to brag” that he had “completely understood and approved of the assault,” prompting Mullin to “explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and border patrol agents.”

Mullin’s response was that he was simply a blunt person and that he has had to “really pray about my attitude,” chalking his beef with Paul up to “political differences.”

Mullin also stood by a previous comment that he “understood” where Paul’s neighbor was coming from.

This story has been updated.

Per the families’ requests, media access was reportedly restricted during a dignified transfer of six killed service members at Dover Air Force Base Wednesday. But that didn’t stop the White House from turning the ceremony into content for the internet.

The White House shared several photographs across social media, touting Donald Trump’s attendance at the proceedings with all the esteem an American flag and prayer-hands emoji can provide. “Their courage will never be forgotten,” read another post, with a second American flag emoji.

On TikTok, the White House posted a slideshow of photographs with a piano rendition of “Amazing Grace” playing over top. “The service and sacrifice of the six American heroes will never be forgotten,” the caption read, sounding copy-pasted from ChatGPT.

The images included one of Trump saluting a travel case draped with an American flag. The White House also uploaded a batch of 12 photographs to its Flickr account that showed Trump standing beside House Speaker Mike Johnson and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The ceremony was held to honor six service members who served aboard a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed last week in Iraq, while supporting operations in Iran. The U.S. death toll of Operation Epic Fury has risen to 13 service members.

This was the second dignified transfer Trump has attended since launching his war in Iran. But this is the third transfer ceremony of the war so far: Trump skipped the second after he received immense backlash for wearing his own merchandise during the first proceeding.

This time, he left his gaudy $55, gold-embroidered “USA” baseball cap at home. The White House also previously used a photograph from a dignified transfer earlier this month to illustrate a fundraising email that offered to sell “private national security briefings.”

The White House’s flagrant flouting of the families’ plea for privacy demonstrates that it hasn’t learned anything. Trump is continuing to use dignified transfers for his own political purposes. If not for ads, then for propaganda.