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WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is probing ex-Trump aide Corey Lewandowski over whether he profited off his top position at the Department of Homeland Security, The Post has confirmed.
Lewandowski, who was President Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016, got on the DOJ’s radar after a watchdog referred a complaint for alleged abuse of his position at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s second term.
The DHS Office of Inspector General began looking into accusations earlier this year that Lewandowski had profited from the awarding of federal contracts as a top adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The inspector general’s office asked all DHS employees in March to start preserving records on the hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth in contracts — including no-bid pacts related to a $220 million ad campaign starring Noem, three sources familiar with the matter previously told the Post.
That included other instances involving alleged solicitations of foreign officials and the Geo Group that operates private prisons.
The IG was also looking into “pay to play visa schemes” that US Citizenship and Immigration Services, a subagency at DHS, had expressed internal “concerns” about, a fourth person familiar with the probe noted.
The referral, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, has been denied by a representative for Lewandowski, who said his client “has not been contacted by the Justice Department regarding any investigation, and he denies any wrongdoing when he was proudly serving his country in a voluntary capacity.”
Lewandowski called himself an “unpaid volunteer” for the Trump White House before he and Noem were ousted in March, following the Cabinet officials’ disastrous House and Senate testimony about the ad campaign.
In her congressional testimony, Noem also struggled to answer whether she and Lewandowski were having an affair.
Noem went on to serve as a special envoy and senior adviser at the State Department after leaving DHS on March 5, whereas Lewandowski left DHS — and government service entirely — weeks later.
His position as special government employee was supposed to last just 130 days per calendar year, but he managed to prolong his tenure by allegedly avoiding badging himself in at DHS headquarters by arriving with Noem’s motorcade.
Sources previously told The Post Lewandowski spent the night with Noem at her government-owned home — the Coast Guard commandant’s house on a Washington military base, which was used by the former DHS secretary for security reasons.
Lewandowski has also denied reports that he’d acted with apparent impunity because he expected the president to exonerate him if he was prosecuted, with one Post source explaining that the former Trump official said: “I’m not worried. I do whatever the f–k I want. DJT will pardon me.”
Trump said Thursday following the report: “All I know is I want my people to be honest, and if they’re not going to be honest, they have to be prosecuted.”
“I view it as if people are not honest, they’re stealing from me as president, they’re stealing from me. So I want my people to be honest, and if they’re not honest, I’ll have my DOJ go and do whatever they have to do,” Trump told reporters outside the White House.
While working at DHS, Noem and Lewandowski gave directions to underlings that contracts, grants and other funding decisions exceeding $100,000 shouldn’t be made without their final sign-off.
In some cases, that delayed federal disaster relief dollars from being disbursed as well as some border wall funding.