Corey Lewandowski, the Trump 2016 marketing campaign supervisor who served as an unpaid adviser to former Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem for the previous yr, is not working at DHS, the division mentioned Friday.
An announcement confirmed his departure from DHS however didn’t specify any future authorities position for Lewandowski, who was photographed with Noem this week in Guyana throughout an official go to she made to the South American nation.
“Mr. Lewandowski not has a task at DHS,” the assertion mentioned.
The affirmation of his standing at DHS comes amid hypothesis about his future after Noem was named a particular envoy for Western Hemisphere safety points. Lewandowski appeared together with her in images launched by the U.S. Embassy in Guyana.
Controversy swirled round Lewandowski’s position at DHS throughout Noem’s stormy tenure main the division on the forefront of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement operations.
Lewandowski began working as political adviser to Noem whereas she was South Dakota governor and lobbied President Donald Trump to call her DHS chief. He performed an outsize position on the division as soon as she joined the Cupboard.
Lewandowski got here into the Trump administration as a “particular authorities worker,” elevating questions on how he was counting his days on the company. U.S. legislation limits short-term authorities staff to 130 days per yr of unpaid work, however Lewandowski has labored at DHS because the begin of Noem’s tenure in February 2025.
He didn’t reply to an earlier request for remark about whether or not he’d be staying in authorities. The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark about Lewandowski’s employment standing Friday.
Regardless of his casual standing, Lewandowski had the power to veto any contract exceeding $100,000 on the company, in addition to different high-level choices. An administration official, granted anonymity to talk candidly, additionally instructed POLITICO that Lewandowski was already going through warmth over DHS’s short-lived transfer final month to shut down TSA PreCheck. The transfer was seen as a solution to stress Democrats to fund the division, which has been shut down since February of this yr over a funding deadlock.
Noem earlier this month refused to reply questions from Home Democrats about her relationship with Lewandowski amid media reviews that the 2 have had an affair.
Lewandowski, who served as Trump’s marketing campaign supervisor in 2016, was extensively credited with the tactical choices that led to the president’s win within the New Hampshire major that yr. His star light after he was accused of grabbing a feminine reporter by the arm at a marketing campaign occasion. He was faraway from his publish throughout an inner energy wrestle with then-campaign chair Paul Manafort. The Trump ally denied any wrongdoing for the incident.
Regardless of Lewandowski’s rocky efforts in 2016, Trump and Lewandowski have remained shut. Trump briefly named Lewandowski as a senior adviser to the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, although he was moved right into a surrogate position by October within the face of displeasure from Trump.
