On a winter night time final 12 months, shortly after Donald Trump was sworn into workplace, senior officers on the Division of Homeland Safety assembled discreetly at a non-public house in Washington, D.C., to debate what they noticed as a gathering disaster contained in the company: the connection between their new boss, Kristi Noem, and Corey Lewandowski, her adviser, enforcer, and rumored boyfriend.
The officers have been below monumental strain. Trump had recaptured the presidency amid a well-liked backlash in opposition to unlawful immigration, and had promised a shock-and-awe program of mass deportations as soon as he returned to energy. Now DHS—conceived after 9/11 to guard the nation from terrorist assaults—was being ordered to shift its focus and assets towards delivering on the president’s marketing campaign pledge. This undertaking, already controversial and logistically fraught, was being sophisticated by Lewandowski—a menacing, omnipresent operator who had no expertise in immigration enforcement, however who was nonetheless rapidly consolidating energy on the company. The officers had gathered that night time to map the methods his relationship with Noem might destabilize the division. The dialog ran six hours.
The key assembly, which has not been beforehand reported, is described in Undue Course of: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Programa forthcoming e book by the NBC Information reporter Julia Ainsley. The e book is ready to come back out in early Might, however The Atlantic obtained parts of it early.
The e book, primarily based on in depth reporting, depicts the Division of Homeland Safety as a dysfunctional fiefdom in Trump’s Washington empire—tasked with finishing up probably the most aggressive immigration crackdown in U.S. historical past even because the company’s inner tradition is warped by the connection between an bold, attention-thirsty secretary and her domineering right-hand man and alleged paramour. In Ainsley’s account, Lewandowski is concerned in almost each facet of the company: who will get heard in conferences, what info reaches Noem’s desk, which contractors get employed, and even what sort of detention amenities are constructed to carry arrested migrants.
Noem and Lewandowski, each of whom are married with kids, have denied a romantic relationship. “It’s bullshit,” Lewandowski informed The Atlantic in October. A spokesperson for DHS mentioned, “This Division doesn’t waste time with salacious, baseless gossip.”
However their rumored affair has been extensively handled as an open secret in Washington—first whispered about in political and media circles, then chronicled in tabloids just like the Day by day Mailand, extra just lately, making its means into the The Wall Road Journalwhich reported that the pair flies across the nation collectively in a luxurious 737 with a non-public cabin within the again, and that the president continuously asks concerning the relationship. In Undue Course ofAinsley quotes unnamed officers describing the alleged affair as frequent data. “They don’t conceal it,” says one Customs and Border Safety official who interacted with them frequently. A member of Trump’s transition staff,Ainsley writes, put it extra crassly to her in January 2025: “Oh yeah, they’re nonetheless fucking.”
The reported affair has triggered stress with the West Wing: When Noem tried to put in Lewandowski as her chief of workers, the White Home vetoed the transfer. Rumors about their relationship have been already circulating too extensively—and Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of workers and most influential immigration hawk, was personally repelled by their obvious infidelity, in accordance with Ainsley’s e book. (Miller, Ainsley writes, is a “hard-liner relating to monogamy in marriage,” although a fast survey of the White Home org chart surfaces not less than one exception to his purported no-adulterers rule.) When a CBP official sought Miller’s recommendation on easy methods to navigate the brand new terrain at DHS, Ainsley writes, he warned, “Steer clear of Corey.” Reached for remark, a White Home official disputed this account, saying “Stephen has by no means had any conversations about these rumors nor expressed any ideas or emotions on them” and “Stephen has by no means informed anybody to keep away from Corey.”
As an alternative, Lewandowski was employed as a “particular authorities worker,” much like Elon Musk’s association as the pinnacle of DOGE. The designation is meant to cap authorities work at 130 days a 12 months, however in accordance with Ainsley, Lewandowski appeared to ignore the rule. Inside DHS headquarters, he started referring to himself as “chief adviser” to the secretary. (In response to the DHS spokesperson, Lewandowski labored 115 days final 12 months as a particular authorities worker.)
Lewandowski was a relative no-name in Republican politics when he was employed in 2015 to function Trump’s first marketing campaign supervisor. He developed a repute for vindictiveness and bullying; his temporary tenure was marked by a number of bodily confrontations with reporters and protesters. He was additionally accused of constructing sexually suggestive feedback and undesirable romantic advances towards feminine journalists overlaying the 2016 marketing campaign. (Lewandowski denied these allegations on the time.)
However his loyalty earned him a everlasting place in Trump’s orbit, which Lewandowski has used in recent times to advance Noem’s political profession—introducing her to key Trump-world figures and shaping her public picture. Noem’s rise from governor of South Dakota to MAGA political superstar was additionally abetted by her personal refashioning. As Ainsley writes, Noem underwent an in depth bodily transformation to evolve to a sure MAGA aesthetic—together with dental surgical procedure and different obvious beauty enhancements—and, by 2024, she was touring with a private make-up artist. (The DHS spokesperson famous that Noem has not traveled with a make-up artist as secretary.)
She additionally has a aptitude for the theatrical. Shortly after she was put in within the Cupboard, she attended a pre-raid briefing for ICE officers in New York Metropolis. As profession officers regarded on in bewilderment, Noem walked onstage—in TV-ready make-up, coiffed curls, and a Kevlar vest—to a rustic track by Hint Adkins known as “Sizzling Mama.” (“And also you’re one sizzling mama / You flip me on. Let’s flip it up, and switch this room, right into a sauna.”) The surreal spectacle helped earn Noem the nickname “ICE Barbie.”
Trump had reportedly thought of tapping Noem to be his operating mate in 2024. However her title was crossed off the quick listing after she disclosed in a memoir that she had shot an “untrainable” household canine years earlier. The story prompted widespread outrage and mock, and plenty of observers assumed it sank her prospects of an administration put up. However Ainsley studies that Trump truly noticed this explicit biographical element as an asset in his homeland-security secretary—it was one of many causes he selected her.
Whereas Noem performed to the cameras, Ainsley writes, Lewandowski was busy accumulating an “unchecked stage of energy” inside DHS. Officers have been reluctant to query him out of concern that they’d be terminated by Noem, and a chill settled over any conferences that he attended. “She would ask, ‘Why is everybody so quiet?’ when it was plain to see folks have been afraid to talk up in entrance of Corey,” one of many CPB officers informed Ainsley. “What are you going to do? Make an accusation? They’ll tear you aside,” the official mentioned.
One coverage that Lewandowski took a specific curiosity in, in accordance with Undue Course ofwas migrant-detention facilities. Contained in the administration, Ainsley writes, a divide had shaped over easy methods to home the thousands and thousands of immigrants Trump needed to arrest. One group, which included “border czar” Tom Homan, favored scaling up the development of conventional brick-and-mortar amenities. However Lewandowski was lifeless set on a less expensive, extra austere answer: He envisioned shuttling detained migrants to tent cities in punishing places. His lobbying in the end led to the creation of the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” facility within the Florida Everglades in addition to a tent compound in Guantánamo Bay.
Lewandowski additionally took a heavy-handed strategy to distributing DHS contracts, Ainsley writes, insisting that any expenditure over $100,000 be signed off by himself and Noem. Beforehand, a secretary’s sign-off was required just for expenditures of $25 million or extra. The new coverage prompted contractors to complain to the White Home.
However even these throughout the administration who objected to his administration of the division have been reluctant to problem him with no “smoking gun,” Ainsley studies. As one White Home official put it, Lewandowski was like a cockroach who’d grown resistant to insecticide—eliminating him was simpler mentioned than carried out.
By Ainsley, Julia
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