$70 Million DHS Jet with Private Bedroom for Noem and Lewandowski
DHS leased a $70M Boeing 737 MAX with a private cabin/bedroom in the rear — twice the cost of all seven other deportation planes combined. Noem and Lewandowski traveled together in the private cabin. Lewandowski fired a pilot over a blanket.
DHS leased a Boeing 737 MAX (tail number N471US) featuring a private cabin with a bedroom in the rear of the aircraft, at a cost of approximately $70 million — twice the cost of all seven other planes DHS was purchasing for deportation operations combined.
Secretary Kristi Noem and adviser Corey Lewandowski traveled together in the private cabin amid widely reported (but unconfirmed) allegations of an affair between them. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse confronted Noem at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with a photograph of the bedroom while Noem's husband sat directly behind her.
The plane also produced one of the most absurd incidents of the Trump administration: when Noem switched planes due to a maintenance issue, her personal heated blanket was not transferred to the new aircraft. Lewandowski — a political operative with no authority over military personnel — fired the Coast Guard pilot responsible. The pilot had to be reinstated because no one else was available to fly Noem and Lewandowski back.
The $70 million jet was ostensibly for "high-profile deportations," but the private bedroom configuration suggested its primary function was personal comfort for Noem and Lewandowski at taxpayer expense.