A trail of scandal following Kristi Noem is growing messier after her firing.
President Donald Trump demoted Noem, 54, from U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security to U.S. Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas in March.
This took place days after her unsatisfactory two-day testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
The hearing cast an unflattering light on Noem and her rumored affair with top aide Corey Lewandowski, DHS spending, and the enforcement of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Noem’s exit from the role reportedly sparked an exodus of staffers, including Noem’s aide Joseph Guy. Guy served as her deputy chief of staff. He departed the agency on April 30.
The following month, he was deposed in a case examining DHS’ decision to terminate a FEMA grant program aimed at assisting immigrants seeking asylum.
PunchUp, a Substack described as “a scrappy new public-interest journalism platform,” recently revisited the files, unearthing an overlooked fact that renews scrutiny of Noem.
The report states that Guy admitted to deleting 27 Signal chats from his personal phone featuring Noem, Lewandowski, and 17 other members on his final day as a federal worker.
The encrypted service allows users to exchange messages without security tracking. Messages can even be set to self-delete to ensure privacy.
Guy is accused of reinstalling Signal on or before May 1, after the messages were already erased.
Further discovery exposed his searches for “renewal, core, and staffing plan” after he was ordered to hand over the device to the Department of Justice lawyers.
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At the time, Noem was under investigation in relation to DHS’ process of granting contracts. One allegation accused Lewandowski of accepting monetary bribes from contractors seeking favorable treatment.
Guy’s lawyers at Binnall Law Group told PunchUp, “Mr. Guy never intentionally deleted the messages at issue,” and denied the deletion was premeditated between their client, Noem, Lewandowski, and associates. “Any assertion to the contrary is a lie,” they said.
Signal’s user support page says erasing a chat can be as simple as swiping left and pressing delete. It explicitly states that “deleting does not leave the group. Find the group again in your contact list by typing the group name in the search box.”
The messenger app also noted that “If you deleted/reinstalled the app, you can restore your message history only if you have access to your backup/old data.”
However, the resurfaced findings have been impossible for skeptics to dismiss on social media. Their reactions have included the following:
Two people said, “Lock them up!!” and “Digging a deeper hole by destroying evidence. What a dumb–s.”
“Lying to Congress? So what? MAGAts are proud of it. As long as you’re a MAGAt, there are no repercussions,” noted a third person.
“Nothing says ‘nothing to hide’ like torching the evidence on your way out the door.”
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Previous whispers about Noem and her aides being involved in the alleged pay-for-play scheme were a reaction that read, “This is so criminal jfc, and they’re doing it now.”
Another person complained, “You and Lewinsky will forever go down in history as lying puppets who couldn’t get anything done … but wearing different Halloween costumes daily.”
Piling on with a joke, one person added, “The last text was ‘What are you wearing?'”
Noem continues to assert herself as a value to the Trump administration despite falling down the ladder of his inner circle.
The former governor of South Dakota was the first female official removed from a top position this term.
Her public embarrassments also include defending cozy work trips with Lewandoski as her husband, Bryon Noem, watched her testimony. Her marriage took another hit when Bryon’s intimate photos and texts with another woman surfaced online in March.
Pam Bondi, former attorney general, was ousted in April after her own nightmare hearings before Congress. She was replaced by her deputy attorney general Todd Blanche.
