A prison referral accusing fired Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem of mendacity to Congress was filed Monday by a pair of prime Democratic lawmakers.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Sick) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) – the highest Democrats on the Home and Senate judiciary committees – requested Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi to open a perjury investigation into Noem over false statements she allegedly made beneath oath throughout congressional hearings earlier this month.
Noem “repeatedly misled” Home and Senate lawmakers throughout testimony on March 3 and 4, in line with Durbin and Rasking, who mentioned the DHS chief made “a quantity” of statements that seem to violate federal perjury statutes, of their letter to Bondi.
“After months of evading our Committees’ requests to testify in routine oversight hearings, Secretary Noem made a collection of demonstrably false statements in a brazen try to undermine vital congressional oversight of the Division of Homeland Safety,” the lawmakers wrote.
“She did so after affirming that her testimony to the Senate can be ‘the reality, the entire reality, and nothing however the reality’ and that her testimony to the Home, ‘beneath penalty of perjury,’ can be ‘true and proper.’”
The Democrats listed 4 classes of statements from the hearings the place Noem “knowingly and willfully made false statements to Congress,” together with the previous South Dakota governor’s remarks a few $220 million publicity blitz.
Noem testified that President Trump personally authorized the DHS advert marketing campaign, which prominently featured the DHS secretary, when grilled by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).
Nevertheless, in an interview with Reuters, Trump declared, “I by no means knew something about it” when requested if he authorized the advert marketing campaign.
“These two statements are clearly inconsistent; one among them must be false,” the lawmakers famous.
Noem additionally flatly denied that particular authorities worker Corey Lewandowski – whom she’s allegedly having an affair with – had any function approving DHS contracts or insurance policies, which the lawmakers argue “may have been false.”
They cited media stories indicating Lewandowski “asserts approval authority over contracts and grants that exceed $100,000” and and has signed paperwork associated to division coverage selections.
Durbin and Raskin additionally requested the Justice Division to scrutinize Noem’s responses to questions on DHS’s compliance with court docket orders, the detaining of US residents and circumstances in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities.
Noem testified that division workers “all the time comply” with court docket orders and that she was “not conscious” of any cases through which a federal decide’s orders have been defied by DHS.
The Democrats countered {that a} federal decide in Minnesota “discovered 210 cases of ICE violating court docket orders since December 2025 in Minnesota alone,” and included comparable assertions from jurists in New Jersey and Maine.
Additionally they declare Noem lied about ICE adhering to federal detention requirements and when she declared “[w]e don’t detain Americans.”
Of their letter to Bondi, Durbin and Raskin acknowledged that they don’t anticipate their referral to result in prison fees beneath the Trump administration – however prompt a future administration might pursue a case.
“Whereas we now have low expectations that you’ll pursue this matter given your partisan weaponization of the Division of Justice, we be aware that the statute of limitations for perjury and for knowingly and willfully making false statements to Congress is 5 years,” they wrote.
Trump introduced by way of Fact Social put up earlier this month that Noem was out at DHS and would get replaced by Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).
Noem might be shifted to a particular envoy function, for “The Defend of the Americas” coalition, the president mentioned.
DHS didn’t instantly reply to The Submit’s request for remark.
