Around this time 10 years ago, it appeared that Corey Lewandowski’s role as a member of Donald Trump’s team had run its course. The Republican operative was Trump’s campaign manager for several months in 2016, but after clashing with his colleagues and facing a criminal charge after a confrontation with a reporter, the future president ousted Lewandowski from his political operation.
Though it seemed implausible, the operative gradually worked his way back into Trump’s good graces, and when the president returned to power after the 2024 elections, Lewandowski received a striking reward: Trump tapped him to serve as a “special government employee” to help run the Department of Homeland Security alongside then-Secretary Kristi Noem.
Predictably, Lewandowski’s tenure proved controversial — in part because of the policy agenda he championed; in part because he wanted to carry a gun (for reasons that were never fully explained), to the alarm of DHS officials; and in part because of the nature of his close relationship with Noem.
Making matters worse are the latest corruption allegations.
In July, for example, The Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators found evidence that Lewandowski “may have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts” during time at DHS. This week, the Journal published a separate report, alleging that the operative used his role in the department to pursue side deals for himself. From the article:
When Corey Lewandowski was at the Department of Homeland Security, he approached senior Qatari officials with a proposal.
Hire me on the side, the longtime Trump aide who was effectively the shadow secretary at the department last year, told them, according to people familiar with his pitch. He said he could help the tiny, wealthy Gulf state with any issues that fell under the department’s purview, such as visas, the people said. He approached representatives of the United Arab Emirates with a similar offer, people familiar with the outreach said.
According to the article, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, officials in Qatar and the UAE not only declined Lewandowski’s proposals, they were also “taken aback and confused why they would need Lewandowski’s help when they already had traditional relationships with top administration officials.”
While many of the key players — Noem, DHS officials, White House officials, et al. — did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment, Lewandowski explicitly denied wrongdoing. That said, the way in which the operative pushed back against the reporting was itself notable.
In a multi-part statement published to social media, Lewandowski chided the newspaper for pursuing the allegations, characterizing the story as “fiction.” He added, “This latest Wall Street Journal story, a once great publication, is today just another example of the kind of anonymous-source, politically driven reporting that Americans have seen time and again. We’ve lived through the Russia collusion hoax the fake Birthday card and countless other sensational allegations that ultimately failed to withstand scrutiny.”
The pushback has a serious flaw: Trump’s Russia scandal wasn’t a “hoax,” no matter how many times Republicans try to deny reality, and the apparent birthday message that Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein has not been discredited as “fake.” Lewandowski’s pitch, in effect, was that these new allegations he’s facing shouldn’t be taken seriously because Trump was falsely accused — which is both terrible logic and an argument that collapses on itself because Trump wasn’t falsely accused.
That Lewandowski specifically included these two examples in his official statement suggests the denial is intended to resonate with an audience of one: the president, who’s demonstrated an eagerness to hand out pardons to allies he deems loyal.
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the underlying controversies, but the Journal’s report noted that Lewandowski is facing an investigation from the DHS inspector general’s office. And in June, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire announced that she, too, has opened an investigation into what she described as Lewandowski’s “alleged corruption and abuse of taxpayer dollars.” Watch this space.
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