Corey Lewandowski has been a longtime “player” in President Trump’s campaigns and other Trump operations, including the White House. Over the years, he always seemed to find ways to raise eyebrows and raise questions about many of the things he did while in government. There’s big news about Lewandowski regarding news today. However, before we dive into that, let’s look at at least one previous story which addressed Lewandowski’s alleged “issues” previously.
The following story was published March 6, 2024.
On March 6, several outlets — including MSN Now and CBS News — reported that the longtime adviser to President Donald Trump and a top aide to Kristi Noem is leaving the Department of Homeland Security. The news comes just one day after the president removed Noem as homeland security secretary in the first major Cabinet shakeup of his second term.
For several years, reports have circulated alleging a relationship between Lewandowski, who is married with four children, and Noem, who is also married, a mother of three children and a grandmother of four grandkids. On March 4, Noem was questioned about the alleged affair while testifying about immigration enforcement actions before the House Judiciary Committee.
After Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) asked if she “had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski,” Noem responded, “I am shocked we’re going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee.”
Here’s what to know about Corey Lewandowski amid his reported exit from the Department of Homeland Security.
Before working with Trump, Lewandowski grew up in his hometown of Lowell, Mass., per Politico.
He later attended the University of Massachusetts and earned his master’s degree from American University in Washington, D.C., where he also worked in Republican congressional offices and campaigns.
Lewandowski has been working in politics since the late 1990s, per his LinkedIn, but began working with Trump in 2015. Before Lewandowski’s reported March 2026 departure from the Department of Homeland Security, Trump had cut ties with him twice.
He previously served as Trump’s campaign manager early in the president’s 2016 run. In June of that year, Lewandowski was abruptly dismissed following internal conflicts and reported power struggles within the team.
He later reentered Trump’s inner circle, only to be pushed out again in 2021 after a donor accused Lewandowski of making unwanted sexual advances at a charity event in Las Vegas. He has denied the allegations.
In September 2024, Trump spoke to New York Magazine about Lewandowski, saying, “I just like him. Corey’s a character.”
Lewandowski met his wife, Alison Hardy Lewandowski, when they were in ninth and eighth grade, respectively, per The Washington Post. The pair dated in high school and college before going their separate ways.
Hardy then married one of Lewandowski’s friends, Brian Kinney, who died in the 9/11 attacks.
According to the outlet, Lewandowski and Hardy reconnected and got married in 2005. They share four children.
Lewandowski’s reported departure from the Department of Homeland Security comes just two days after Noem was questioned about her alleged relationship with him.
He served as a senior adviser to Noem at DHS, where he was widely described as her de facto chief of staff. However, his technical status is an unpaid “special government employee.”
Rumors of a possible romantic relationship between the two have circulated for several years, beginning during Noem’s time as governor of South Dakota and resurfacing after Lewandowski joined the department. Both have denied the allegations.
Noem faced questions about the alleged relationship while testifying on immigration enforcement actions before the House Judiciary Committee on March 4, refusing to answer directly.
She also downplayed Lewandowski’s influence, maintaining that he had no authority to make decisions for the department.
“He is a special government employee who works for the White House,” Noem said of the role. “There are thousands of them in the federal government.”
That Was Then; This Is Now
(September 8, 2026) The Wall Street Journal is out with an explosive new report on Corey Lewandowski’s tenure at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alleging that the one-time adviser to President Trump wielded far more authority than he should have, considering his title. And he may have used his position there to enrich himself.
Lewandowski was an unpaid “special government employee” at DHS from roughly April 2025 until March 2026, theoretically serving as an adviser to then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, with whom he has been rumored to have a romantic relationship.
According to this new story, however, officials inside DHS saw him more as a “shadow secretary” than an unpaid volunteer. He reportedly had significant influence over personnel decisions and immigration policy, with control over billions of dollars in federal spending. All of this despite never having been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Kristi Noem’s close adviser effectively controlled billions in spending at Homeland Security. Lewandowski denies seeking business or playing any role in the agency’s contracts. https://t.co/gSXNcyoFc5
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 8, 2026
One of the more serious allegations made in the Journal story involved Lewandowski approaching senior officials from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and offering to work for them privately, even suggesting that he could help secure visas.
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[s] with any issues that fell under the department’s purview, such as visas, the people said.
Both countries declined, but if true, these episodes strongly suggest that Lewandowski tried to profit personally from his access to government services.
The alleged moneymaking efforts, which appeared to be offers by Lewandowski to sell government services for personal gain, came while he had an expansive portfolio at one of the most powerful agencies in the federal government. The role gave him de facto decision-making authority over large amounts of recently appropriated billions of dollars, the president’s border and immigration enforcement agenda and the collection of tariffs, which have been vastly expanded under President Trump.
The Journal story also raises serious questions about Lewandowski’s involvement in negotiations with Palantir over a multi-billion dollar contract, a long-running beef he had with immigration contractor GEO Group after it declined to hire him as a lobbyist, and ties to a $2.3 million FEMA grant awarded to a small conservative nonprofit outside the usual process.
The Justice Department has very strict ethics rules governing how special government employees should conduct themselves: “Generally, you should not engage in outside activities, including employment, that conflict with your official duties. An activity conflicts with your duties if it would require you to disqualify yourself from matters so critical that your ability to perform your duties would be impaired.”
The DHS inspector general is now investigating whether contracts were improperly handled and whether Lewandowski or those around him personally benefited from the agency’s spending decisions. Investigators have reportedly been examining Lewandowski’s role in selecting contractors, including some mega deals that attracted attention during Kristi Noem’s tenure.
Needless to say, political observers from across the spectrum are abuzz on social media over the story, with some alleging “insane levels of corruption” during Lewandowski’s DHS tenure and others saying “mind-blowing corruption” is “happening before our eyes.”
