Ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is still living in a military waterfront home typically designated for Coast Guard officials, despite being fired by President Donald Trump last month, according to a report.
Noem has been spotted coming and going from the home in Washington, D.C., in recent days and has continued to use the accommodation more than six weeks after her ouster, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The embattled former cabinet member moved onto the military base after protesters and paparazzi discovered the address of her private residences while she oversaw the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration crackdown. Noem’s top aide, Corey Lewandowski, has also been seen at the home over the past year and as recently as this month, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. The pair has been accused of engaging in an extramarital affair, which Noem and Lewandowski have blasted as “tabloid garbage.”
“Scores of people have visited Ms. Noem at the house in a business capacity,” Lewandowski told the Journal in a statement through a lawyer.
After her ousting, Noem was appointed to a little-known initiative titled special envoy for the Shield of the Americas—Western Hemisphere. It was not immediately clear why Noem was still living at the military base. Coast Guard commandant Admiral Kevin Lunday currently lives in the home next door to Noem’s and plans to move into the house she is occupying “imminently,” Lunday reportedly told associates. The Independent has contacted the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Trump fired Noem after a string of high-profile screw-ups at the department. In January, Noem and other Trump administration officials falsely accused U.S. citizen protesters Alex Pretti and Renee Good of being “domestic terrorists” after they were killed by federal agents in an immigration surge in Minnesota. She refused to apologize when the claim was disproved by footage filmed by eyewitnesses at the scenes.
The final nail in the coffin came during congressional hearings in March, where Noem was pressed about a $220 million TV ad campaign about deportations, where she appeared on horseback before Mount Rushmore. She claimed Trump signed off on the campaign, which he swiftly denied.
Since leaving Trump’s cabinet, Noem has been at the center of another scandal involving her husband, Bryon Noem, who sent compromising photos to female models online while engaging in a “bimbofication” fetish. Noem released a statement expressing her shock at the time, but her husband’s extramarital activity was reportedly “an open secret” in Washington. Another report last week alleged that the couple racked up millions of dollars in debt before their rise to national prominence. The couple has been married for almost 34 years and has three adult children and several grandchildren.
