Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he would open a perjury investigation into ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after alleging she lied to Congress about the hidden influence her top adviser Corey Lewandowski had over the agency’s contracts.
Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and ranking member of the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, said Thursday that he would push the panel to investigate whether Noem committed perjury at a hearing this week, when she flatly denied that Lewandowski played any role in approving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending. Blumenthal said Democrats had evidence to prove otherwise.
“Her dismissal does not absolve her or release her from potential liability for perjury,” he said. “We are going to conduct an investigation into the evidence that she lied, because it relates to corruption in the administration.”
At Tuesday’s hearing, Blumenthal pressed Noem on whether Lewandowski, a former Trump ally who served as his senior adviser, was involved in approving the contracts. She described him as a “special government employee” who worked for the White House, so when Blumenthal characterized it as a contractual function, she simply said, “No.”
The next day, Blumenthal sent him a letter arguing that DHS records told a different story: that Lewandowski had personally signed the contracts and that department staff treated his signature as a green light to spend. “There are criminal penalties for knowingly and intentionally making materially false statements or representations to Congress,” he wrote.
Federal procurement records reviewed by The Guardian show that last year, DHS awarded a $250,000 public affairs contract to American Made Media Company, a newly formed Republican political consulting firm whose principals have deep professional ties to Lewandowski. The posting, published on Sept. 26 with bids due the next day, was unusual not only for the tight deadline but for its obviously partisan requirements: The winning company would have to demonstrate “an established track record of promoting Trump administration policies in the media.” Four days after its release, American Made Media Company had the contract.
The company is run by veterans of Trump’s presidential campaigns, several of whom worked directly alongside Lewandowski, who ran Trump’s 2016 campaign, on political and legal efforts related to the president. The Guardian found no record of previous government contracting work by the company.
A Politico report last August also described Lewandowski as involved in liquidating six-figure contracts at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which is part of DHS. The Wall Street Journal later discovered that contracts over $100,000 had been routed through the secretary’s office, giving Noem and Lewandowski unusual influence over department spending.
Still, with the Senate under Republican control, Blumenthal cannot compel witnesses or issue subpoenas without the blessing of subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who has given no indication that he intends to go that route. What Blumenthal can do, however, is hold public forums, demand documents and solicit whistleblowers, tools he has made clear he intends to use.
Noem was fired after facing bipartisan criticism in a series of congressional hearings, including scrutiny of a $220 million border security ad campaign that highlighted her image. Noem claimed that Trump had approved the spending, but Trump flatly rejected her claims and told Reuters on Thursday that he had no knowledge of it.
Noem’s firing was perhaps not surprising considering she had spent months racking up political damage and the White House had reportedly been warned in advance that patience was wearing thin.
According to PBS reporter Lisa Desjardins, Republican Senator John Kennedy, who had probably been the most annoying Noem in her congressional grilling, told the reporter that he had alerted the White House that he had questions about Noem that were “gnawing away at him,” and that he had received information that contradicted his account of how millions in advertising money were outsourced to political allies and former partners.
When asked if anyone was telling the truth about the details behind the spending campaign, Kennedy said, “I trust my information.”
