When Rep. Kamlager Asked Trump’s Ex-Top Aide Kristi Noem About Her Physical Relationship

So, Secretary Noem, at any time during your tenure as Director of Department of Homeland Security, have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski? Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Secretary, for joining us. Finally, you are in charge of protecting the homeland. And so your judgment and the judgment of your senior staff can be the difference between life and death. So I think that judgment would need to be unassailable. Why, then, is the question, have you made Corey Lewandowski your de facto chief of staff who possesses an unchecked level of power at DHS? Under your leadership, this person has done things like fire your FEMA administrator while sitting behind your desk, which is your job to do, lobby to build the controversial detention facility known as Alligator Alcatraz which has turned into a legal boondoggle costing Florida millions and have veto and reviewing and signing power over large DHS contracts and grants which again is your job DHS has critical agency components like the Secret Service, FEMA, Border Patrol, cybersecurity, so does Corey Lewandowski have national security experience, military experience, law enforcement experience? No. He is a lobbyist, a failed campaign manager, which is causing my constituents who are waiting for their FEMA dollars and me to wonder what are his qualifications for this job. So according to the Wall Street Journal, you and Mr. L have a close relationship that has made President Trump, quote, uncomfortable. The president reportedly denounced Corey Lewandowski as your chief of staff due to reports of a romantic relationship between the two of you. So instead, you designated him as a special government employee, a position he has had well beyond the allowed 130 days and requires him to disclose if he is making money off of his position. Trump knows that this guy is shady. Corey has a decades-long record of physical battery, sexual harassment, illegal lobbying for a Venezuelan oil company, and bringing a loaded gun into a federal building. Despite being fired or removed from virtually every position he has ever held due to misconduct, he now wields unchecked, unconfirmed, undisclosed power over your department. This person has no experience running anything close to Department of Homeland security or even advising someone in your position. He is unqualified, which again has left my constituents and I wondering why he is your top official. So Secretary Noem, at any time during your tenure as Director of Department of Homeland Security, have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski? Mr. Chairman, I am shocked that we're going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today reclaiming ma'am one thing that i would tell you is that he is a special government employee who works for the White House there are thousands of them in the federal government reclaiming as an advisor it is okay for you to be no authority to be making any decisions okay for you to be offended by the question um but it is also a real question so what i would say and you should be able to answer the question what we do at the Department of Homeland Security every single day is to protect this country and to make decisions. You or any federal official is sleeping with their subordinate. That should be the easiest. You should be wanting to answer that question. Because it is not about your sense of judgment It is about your judgment. It is about reclaiming my time so that I can hear myself. Time belongs to the gentlelady from California, but it would be nice if you would let her respond. I will. I want to let you know it is about your judgment and decision-making. It is about the 260,000 employees that work under you that want to make sure that you are giving information and making decisions clearly. It is about conflict of interest. It is about a national security risk. Department of Homeland Security was created right after 9-11 to protect the homeland. And DHS has circulated an internal bulletin to law enforcement partners warning that the conflict of the war we're in could inspire lone actors or small-scale cyber activity inside the United States, according to a memo obtained by ABC News. So American lives are at risk. The people who work for you are at risk. And they want to know that the person at the top, you, are making decisions clearly without any sort of cloudiness and that they're your decisions because you're the secretary who was confirmed. That's what this is about, saving the lives of Americans and not costing them millions of dollars and not having a secretary who's compromised in her decision-making and Mr. Chair before I yield my time I would like to enter into the record some articles and I'm asking for unanimous consent Noem tightens her grip on DHS Lewandowski fired FEMA admin objection okay the next one is Kristi Noem secretly took a cut of political donations from ProPublica without objection uh Kristi Noem fires pilot over a blanket but is forced to reinstate him to fly home Wall Street Journal without objection Lewandowski taking out trash at Noem's DC home Daily Beast objection Barbie's mile high privacy chamber with alleged lover exposed Wall Street Journal how Corey Lewandowski became Kristi Noem's gatekeeper at DHS objection a pilot fired over Kristi Noem's missing blanket and the constant chaos inside DHS Wall Street Journal. Police charged Trump campaign manager with assault. PBS News. Objection. Woman who accused Corey Lewandowski of assault speaks out. I don't want this to happen to anyone else. CBS News. Lewandowski's firm quietly inked deal with Venezuela-owned company Politico. Objection. list of U.S. cities raising security amid Iran conflict Newsweek objection uh Kristi Noem I have a few more I'm sorry Kristi Noem misled Congress yesterday about top aide's role in DHS contract objection policy number 10271 from ICE it is an anti-fraternization policy prohibiting romantic or sexual relationships between supervisors and their subordinates. And with that, I yield.