Over two days of sworn testimony — before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 3 and the House Judiciary Committee on March 4 — soon-to-be-former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem lied repeatedly at both hearings. On March 5, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was creating a new position for Noem.
“Effective March 31, 2026. The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida,” Trump posted. “I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”
The lies she told over two days were too blatant even for Trump to ignore. Noem told the Senate a $220 million ad contract was competitively bid, then admitted to the House the next morning it wasn’t. She told both chambers that DHS does not detain American citizens, despite having admitted to 38 detentions in writing weeks earlier. She told both chambers that DHS complies with court orders, while a Republican-appointed judge had documented nearly 100 violations and had threatened contempt citations. And at least 15 times across both hearings, senators and representatives asked her to retract her false claim that two Americans shot dead by her agents were domestic terrorists.
She lost Republicans, too. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called her leadership a “disaster” and threatened to bring Senate nominations to a halt until she answered his questions. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told her to her face that his research showed the ad contract was not competitively bid, and pressed her on whether she had tried to shift blame for the tragedies in Minneapolis to Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller. Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) opened the hearing by conceding: “Mistakes have been made.”
15 Chances to Retract. Zero Retractions.
“I absolutely strive to provide factual information and will continue to do that.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) had just asked her to retract her claim that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were domestic terrorists. Goode, 37, shot three times through her car window by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on January 7. Pretti, 37, an intensive care unit nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, was pinned to the ground and shot six times by Customs and Border Protection officers on January 24. The Minnesota medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. Video contradicted her statement. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons later testified under oath that his agency never told her either person was a domestic terrorist. Durbin asked: “Is it so hard to say you were wrong?”
“I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said it appeared to be an incident of…” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Durbin had already entered her exact statements into the record with dates, times, and the word “terrorism.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) then relayed what Pretti’s parents told her directly: that Noem calling their son a domestic terrorist was “one of the most hurtful things they could ever imagine.” Klobuchar: “I think the parents saw it for what it was.”
“I did not stop any investigations whatsoever.”
— Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked about her role in stopping a civil rights investigation into the Minnesota shootings. On the House side, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) pressed on the same point, noting that DHS barred Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from accessing the crime scene after Alex Pretti’s shooting and that a federal judge had to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent DHS from destroying evidence.
“I’ll tell you the investigation’s still ongoing.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) tried seven times in a single five-minute round. “Based on what you know today, were Renee Good and Alex Pretti domestic terrorists?” He reminded her that her own ICE director retracted the claim. “This is your guy. He admitted that that was wrong. Why won’t you admit it?”
“I did. I said condolences.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Raskin: “You don’t want to say anything to their families?” Noem said she already had. Raskin: “For what? How about an apology?” Noem: “My heart is with them.” Pretti’s family had previously said: “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) asked the same question the day before and got “condolences” too. Across both days, at least 15 senators and representatives gave her a direct opportunity to retract. She took none of them.
The Ad Contract
“They went out to a competitive bid and career officials at the department chose who would do those advertising commercials.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Federal spending records show no-bid contracts. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told her the ads were “effective in your name recognition” and said it was “hard for me to believe” Trump would have approved the expenditure.
“It was a no-bid contract where two vendors were—” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) confronted her with DHS’s own filing, “Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition.” She reversed her Senate testimony in under 24 hours. Neguse established that Safe America Media, the $143 million recipient, was incorporated eight days before the contract, had never done government work, has no website, and is registered to political operative Michael McElwain’s home address in Virginia. The subcontractor, the Strategy Group, ran the advertising for Noem’s 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign and is run by the husband of her former chief DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin.
“Is there a problem with this contract?” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Her response to Neguse after he laid out the facts. The Strategy Group later disclosed it received $226,137 from Safe America — traceable out of $143 million. Where the rest went remains unknown. Noem had no answer.
“To the best of my knowledge, none of us were involved in deciding who got those contracts.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) asked whether she, her DHS colleague Corey Lewandowski, or spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin communicated any preference to the contracting agency. ProPublica reported that the Strategy Group’s CEO worked on Noem’s memoir under Lewandowski and received $8.5 million from South Dakota state funds while she was governor. Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) asked her to find out whether Lewandowski received compensation from either company. She agreed. By Day 2, with the no-bid admission on the record and the vendor’s eight-day-old incorporation established, she had not followed up.
Court Orders
“Yes, we do comply with federal court orders.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Chief Judge Patrick Schultz of the Federal District of Minnesota, a Republican appointee, had documented over 200 ICE violations and wrote the court was “not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders.” The Trump Department of Justice admitted to 52 violations in New Jersey in a sworn declaration. Federal judges have ruled more than 4,420 times that ICE is detaining people illegally.
“We follow court orders when they apply and when the jurisdiction and decision is applicable to a federal agency like ours.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
The qualifier she added when Sen. Durbin pressed.
“We always comply with federal court orders. I believe the instances that you’re talking about are times when a judge has issued an order and notification came to us in a period of time that was a large enough gap to not meet the deadline.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
The explanation evolved overnight. She told Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) that 200-plus violations were paperwork delays. A Reagan-appointed judge had separately rejected testimony from acting ICE Director Todd Lyons as “disingenuous, squalid, and dishonorable.”
Detaining American Citizens
“We don’t detain American citizens.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Her own letter to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) the previous month admitted 38 detentions. ProPublica documented more than 170 incidents involving U.S. citizens in the first nine months of the Trump administration, including nearly 20 American children, more than two dozen of whom were held incommunicado for over a day. Minutes later, Noem contradicted herself: “In law enforcement operations across the country, there are times when US citizens may be arrested or detained until their identity is confirmed.”
“No, we are not.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
The lie hardened overnight. Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) asked: “Is your department detaining US citizens?” Seconds later, pressed on adults, Noem shifted. “I think there have been individuals that had probable cause that came into detainment or an identity that needed to be confirmed.” Two contradictory answers in 30 seconds. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) introduced four previously detained U.S. citizens in the hearing room — Patricia O’Keefe, Ryan Eckland, Wesley Powers, and Edmund Higgins, a Marine Corps veteran. None were charged. None had their citizenship questioned. All were held for lawfully protesting or monitoring ICE.
Children in Detention
“Liam was not detained. His father was, and his father abandoned him.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) showed a photograph of five-year-old Liam Ramos in ICE custody wearing a blue bunny hat. School officials at the scene said others in the house offered to take care of him. The federal judge who ordered his release wrote the case had “its genesis in an ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently, even if it requires traumatizing children.”
“Those parents have chosen to keep their children with them. We don’t separate families like the Biden administration.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Her answer when Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) pressed on the detention of 20 American children.
Quotas
“There is no quotas at the Department of Homeland Security.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Stephen Miller had publicly told Fox News the administration was “setting a goal, a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day.” NBC News reported that Miller berated field office leaders in a private meeting, threatening to fire those in the bottom 10 percent of arrest numbers each month. The federal judge who released Liam Ramos on Day 2 explicitly referenced “daily deportation quotas.” Noem said she “would disagree with the judge.”
“If you were counting crimes that these individual illegal aliens in this country have committed, it would be well over 65 to 70 percent.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Sen. Durbin pressed on the fact that less than 14 percent of those arrested had violent criminal charges or convictions. A Cato Institute analysis found 73 percent had no criminal conviction at all. Noem’s number was sourced to nothing.
The Inspector General
“He just hasn’t done that. He wants unfettered access to every single thing in the department, and that’s not the process.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
DHS’s own Inspector General (IG), Joseph Cuffari, who was appointed by Trump, has publicly accused her department of obstructing investigations in 11 documented instances. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) submitted the IG’s letter into the Senate record the day before. “Does anybody have any idea how bad it has to be for the O.I.G. in this agency to come out and do this publicly?” he proclaimed. “That is stonewalling, that’s a failure of leadership, and that is why I’ve called for your resignation.”
The Database
“No. We’re not creating a database.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) then played a video of an ICE agent in Maine telling a U.S. citizen, “We have a nice little database. And now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.” Correa also noted that Tom Homan said on Fox News he wanted to create a database of people arrested during protests at ICE operations. Noem: “I don’t know why he said that.” The surveillance of Americans exercising First Amendment rights tracks with Operation Road Flare, a DHS program GPAHE has reported on that systematically monitors, photographs, and catalogues protesters at ICE facilities across the country — building precisely the kind of database Noem denied.
Corey Lewandowski
“He is a special government employee who works for the White House.” — Kristi Noem, Senate, March 3.
Multiple current and former DHS officials told CNN that nothing reaches Noem’s desk without Lewandowski’s review first. His signature appears on DHS routing documents above deputy secretaries. He fired a FEMA administrator from behind Noem’s desk. Hours after her testimony ended, ProPublica published internal DHS routing sheets showing Lewandowski personally approved a multimillion-dollar equipment contract last summer — and is typically the final signature before Noem’s on any contract above $100,000, confirmed by four current and former DHS officials. On Day 2, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told the committee: “The $100,000 spending rule that you created that comes to your desk — you’re not even sitting at your desk. It’s Corey who’s sitting there.”
“No. He doesn’t work for me.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Rep. Correa told Noem that Tom Homan “works for you.” Noem denied it. Homan oversees ICE and CBP operations under DHS.
“That individual was not fired.” — Kristi Noem, House, March 4.
Noem, addressing the Coast Guard pilot reportedly fired mid-flight because Noem’s personal blanket was left on another government jet. When Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asked if the pilot was told not to fly the next day, Noem said the Wall Street Journal story “was not accurate.” Moskowitz handed her a Coast Guard blanket as a parting gift.
