The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has launched a criminal investigation into billions of dollars in no-bid contracts approved under former Secretary Kristi Noem, with preservation notices going out to dozens of current and former employees tied to the deals.
The probe, reported by the Daily Mail, targets Noem, top adviser Corey Lewandowski, and associates across the department. Investigators are ordering those involved to preserve all communications, documents, text messages, emails, and phone records. No crime has been formally alleged, but if the investigation finds criminal activity, the case would be referred to the Department of Justice or U.S. Attorney's offices for prosecution.
For conservatives who cheered Noem's appointment to lead DHS and secure the border, this is a gut punch. The contracting scandal has already cost her the job. Now it threatens something far worse.
The DHS Office of Inspector General, an independent federal watchdog charged with investigating fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct, is running the investigation. Joseph Cuffari leads that office. He's one of a small group of inspectors general who kept their posts after President Trump fired 17 at the start of his second term.
Cuffari's survival wasn't accidental. He had clashed with Noem before. He told lawmakers she "systematically obstructed" eleven of his prior investigations. Lewandowski, for his part, reportedly tried multiple times to get Cuffari fired before leaving DHS. He failed.
Now Cuffari's office is digging into contracts that Noem's office personally approved. The Daily Mail reported that Noem and Lewandowski maintained control over approval of all six-figure contracts at the department. One senior DHS official familiar with the matter called the probe "long overdue and much needed."
"There has been too much shady stuff done under their watch."
That's the same official's blunt assessment. Lewandowski dismissed the entire matter in two words: "Fake news."
The investigation lands after weeks of mounting public scrutiny over DHS contracting under Noem. At the center sits a controversial $220 million ad campaign, the one that drew congressional heat and brought Noem before a House panel to testify. One of those ads featured Noem on a horse beside a herd of bison at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, filmed in October 2025.
The ad campaign wasn't the only contract raising flags. The reported scope of the probe covers a wide range of no-bid deals, and scrutiny centers on possible influence peddling and conflicts of interest. Contractors reportedly told White House officials that Lewandowski solicited "pay to play" fees. The Daily Mail noted that no specific evidence supporting that allegation has been made public, and Lewandowski has denied wrongdoing.
The fallout from these contracts has real operational consequences. FEMA disaster relief contracts reportedly suffered months-long backlogs. Border wall construction was delayed. Those aren't abstract procurement disputes. They mean slower help for Americans hit by natural disasters and weaker enforcement at the southern border, the very mission Noem was supposed to champion.
Trump forced out both Noem and Lewandowski earlier this month. The president replaced Noem with Markwayne Mullin, who was sworn in alongside Trump at the White House on a Tuesday afternoon. Mullin has publicly stated he looks forward to working with Cuffari, a pointed signal, given Noem's history of blocking the watchdog's work.
Noem didn't leave government entirely. She moved into a new role as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas at the State Department. Last week, ten of her closest advisers and staffers, including her three deputy chiefs of staff, left Homeland Security to join her there. Those staffers are now reportedly caught up in the probe as well, having received preservation notices along with dozens of others in Noem's inner circle.
That detail matters. Noem personally supplied the White House with the names of staffers she wanted to bring to the State Department. She hand-picked the team. And now investigators want their records.
The criminal investigation didn't emerge in a vacuum. Congressional pressure on Noem had been escalating for weeks. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis demanded her resignation at a heated Senate hearing and threatened to block Trump nominations over her conduct. Democrats piled on too, Reps. Raskin and Sen. Durbin asked DOJ to pursue criminal charges against Noem over her congressional testimony.
The bipartisan nature of the criticism is unusual and telling. When members of your own party are calling for your head, the problem isn't partisan overreach. It's conduct.
And the personal dimension hasn't helped. The alleged affair between Noem and Lewandowski has shadowed every official question about their professional relationship and the contracting decisions they jointly controlled. Whether the personal entanglement influenced official business is exactly the kind of question an inspector general exists to answer.
The investigation is in its early stages. Preservation notices are a standard first step, they secure the paper trail before anyone can shred it. The DHS inspector general's office will review the contracts, the approval chain, and the communications around them. If investigators conclude criminal activity occurred, they refer the case to DOJ prosecutors or U.S. Attorney's offices.
That's a significant "if." Investigations don't always produce charges. But the scope here, billions in no-bid contracts, dozens of people receiving notices, a former cabinet secretary and her top adviser at the center, suggests this isn't a routine audit.
Noem's defenders will note that no crime has been alleged. That's true, and it's important. An investigation is not a conviction. But the facts already in public view are damning enough on their own terms: a department secretary and her adviser personally controlling six-figure contract approvals, a $220 million ad campaign that featured the secretary herself, contractors complaining to the White House about pay-to-play demands, and an inspector general who says his prior investigations were systematically blocked.
Conservatives should want this investigated thoroughly. The right has spent years demanding accountability from bloated federal agencies. That principle doesn't pause when the person under scrutiny wore a red hat.
Homeland Security exists to protect Americans. It secures the border, responds to disasters, enforces immigration law. Every dollar steered through a shady no-bid deal is a dollar that didn't go to those missions. Every month of contracting backlog meant slower FEMA response and delayed border wall construction.
The people hurt by procurement corruption aren't Washington insiders. They're the disaster victims waiting for help. The Border Patrol agents waiting for infrastructure. The taxpayers footing the bill.
Mullin now runs the department. Cuffari still runs the watchdog office. The machinery exists to get answers. The question is whether anyone in Washington has the stomach to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if it leads to people who were, until recently, on the team.
Accountability isn't a slogan you hang on the wall when it's convenient. It's the price of public trust, and right now that bill is coming due.
