The Referral
REPORTED. The Wall Street Journal reported first, on Oct. 22, that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Corey Lewandowski. CBS News, Fox News and the New York Times confirmed it with their own sources. The inquiry began with a referral from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. CBS says the inspector general shared its findings "in recent weeks," and one of its sources says the allegations relate to contracts set up while Kristi Noem ran the department. According to the Journal, investigators are looking at two things. One is whether Lewandowski asked several Middle Eastern governments to hire him as a consultant on visas and other matters. The other is whether he sought kickbacks from contractors that wanted DHS business. CBS → Fox →
REPORTED. The Justice Department declined to comment. The inspector general's office told the Times it does not "confirm or deny the existence of an investigation." Lewandowski's lawyer, Adam Trigg, 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." Earlier this year Lewandowski told NBC News he got "zero, not one penny" from any contract he signed off on.
DOCUMENTED, on camera. The president said he had heard about it but knew no details. "I want my people to be honest, and if they're not going to be honest, they have to be prosecuted," he said. He called dishonesty "stealing from me," and added: "if they're not honest, I'll have my DOJ go and do whatever they have to do." CBS reports he said he had not been briefed by Attorney General Todd Blanche.
A Volunteer With a Pen
REPORTED. Lewandowski joined DHS early in 2025 as a special government employee. That status is meant for part-time, unpaid advisers, who can keep private jobs while they serve, and the law caps their service at 130 days a year. In January 2026 Axios reported that he was staying on for another year. Noem, as secretary, required her own sign-off on every contract and grant over $100,000. The New York Times has seen approval memos for that spending that carry Lewandowski's signature next to hers, with his title written out as "chief adviser to S1," the department's shorthand for the secretary. The Senate Democrats' March 30 letter notes that Noem testified under oath on March 3 that he had no role in approving contracts.
INFERENCE. That is why his lawyer's words matter. A volunteer draws no federal salary, so there is no government paycheck to examine. If money reached him, it came from somewhere else. That is the question a criminal investigator can answer with subpoenas and bank records, and congressional letters cannot.
What the Contracts Show
The allegations in the congressional record come down to two companies run by one man, William A. Walters III. The Old Goat pulled both companies' DHS awards from USAspending.gov.
| Date | Award · action | Obligated |
|---|---|---|
| SALUS WORLDWIDE SOLUTIONS CORP. · 1616 Fort Myer Dr, Ste 1600, Arlington VA · task order 70RDA225FR0000018 (DHS Office of Procurement Operations, "Comprehensive Support to Removal Operations") | ||
| May 22, 2025 | Base award | $30,000,000.00 |
| Jun 12, 2025 | P00003, more quantities and funding | $41,138,937.44 |
| Jul 31, 2025 | P00004 | $114,668,369.75 |
| Nov 19, 2025 | P00013, more funds, longer term | $107,000,000.00 |
| Feb 13, 2026 | P00019, higher ceiling | $80,000,000.00 |
| Mar 17, 2026 | P00020, higher ceiling | $124,900,000.00 |
| May 22, 2026 | P00022, under Secretary Mullin | $200,000,000.00 |
| Sep 4, 2026 | P00028, term extended, under Mullin | $50,000,000.00 |
| Total obligated to date · runs to Nov. 21, 2026 · coded "full and open competition after exclusion of sources" | $748,131,718.65 | |
| DAEDALUS AVIATION CORPORATION · 1616 Fort Myer Dr, Ste 1500, Arlington VA · contract 70QS0326C00005002 (aircraft for ICE) | ||
| Nov 21, 2025 | Base award | $139,888,495.20 |
| Dec 12, 2025 | P00001 | $12,111,504.80 |
| Mar 9, 2026 | P00003 | $8,403,495.20 |
| Mar 24, 2026 | P00004, "additional work (new agreement, justification required)" | $303,235,250.80 |
| Total obligated · coded "not competed," "only one source," 1 offer received | $463,638,746.00 | |
Source: USAspending.gov award and transaction records, pulled Oct. 22, 2026. Salus modifications with no new money are left out. Salus also holds a $5,696,663.80 ICE purchase order for aircraft maintenance support, signed May 28, 2026.
DOCUMENTED. The two companies list the same street address, one floor apart. The government's own records code the Daedalus contract as not competed, with a single source and a single offer. The Salus task order carries a different code: competition after some sources were excluded. Senators have called it no-bid. House Oversight Democrats describe a rushed competition among a preselected pool of bidders. Both descriptions are on the record, and the federal coding supports neither one cleanly.
DOCUMENTED. The largest single action in either file is P00004, the $303,235,250.80 Daedalus modification. Its action date is March 24, 2026, the day Markwayne Mullin took the oath as Noem's successor.
REPORTED. The New York Times reported on Oct. 4 that, in the final hours of Noem's tenure, DHS bought five planes from Daedalus. Its figures were $108 million for a Boeing 737 VIP jet that had been listed for sale at under $90 million, $45 million each for two older 737s, and $53 million each for two 10-year-old Gulfstreams. The Times also reported that Mullin looked at backing out of the deal but feared a large penalty, and that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told him not to block it. According to the Times, DHS then paid Daedalus more than $2 million in each of May and June to store the planes, and four of the 737s will fly officials and members of Congress rather than deportees.
INFERENCE. Those five prices add up to $304 million. The Old Goat cannot see inside the modification, but its $303.2 million is consistent with that purchase. The opening award of $139.9 million also matches the "$140 million for six Boeing 737 airplanes" in the April letter from Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on House Oversight.
The Gift and the Address
DOCUMENTED. On Oct. 9, 2024, "Walters, William A III" of McLean, Va., gave $10,000 to American Resolve PAC Inc. He listed himself as CEO of BML Logistics, one of the Walters-linked companies named in the Garcia letter. FEC records list American Resolve (C00887729) as a super PAC with Staci Goede as treasurer. Its registration does not name Noem. FEC filing →
REPORTED. The Times and the senators' Oct. 8 letter describe American Resolve as Noem's political action committee. The company told the Times that Walters did not know the PAC was tied to her. The Old Goat has checked the gift itself but not the connection, which comes from the Times.
REPORTED, from congressional letters citing NBC News (March 19, 2026), and not proven. Two incidents involve Salus. In the first, a Salus representative told a marketing firm, "We are guaranteed this contract, but we need to make sure we are properly thanking the person who gave it to us," and made the deal conditional on hiring a consultant tied to Lewandowski. When the firm refused, Salus called off the deal. In the second, involving a $40 million to $50 million outreach contract, the firm would have received $20 million and the rest would have gone to a consulting company tied to Lewandowski. The private-prison company GEO Group is a separate case. Lewandowski allegedly turned down a retainer from GEO, asked instead for a "success fee" based on the value of its contracts, and then told a DHS official to stop awarding GEO new work. Lewandowski has called the GEO account "absolutely false." Salus has not answered publicly.
DOCUMENTED. In December 2025 GEO's subsidiary B.I. Inc. won an ICE skip-tracing contract, 70CDCR26D00000005, with a ceiling of $121,837,500, signed Dec. 16. Garcia's letter puts it forward as the first new GEO contract after the alleged retaliation.
The Timeline
| Date | Event | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 9, 2024 | Walters gives $10,000 to American Resolve PAC | DOCUMENTED (FEC) |
| Early 2025 | Lewandowski joins DHS as an unpaid special government employee | REPORTED |
| May 22, 2025 | Salus task order begins, $30M; Salus's first federal contract | DOCUMENTED |
| Nov 21, 2025 | Daedalus aircraft contract, $139.9M, not competed | DOCUMENTED |
| Jan 23, 2026 | Axios: Lewandowski back for another year at DHS | REPORTED |
| Mar 3, 2026 | Noem testifies he had no role in approving contracts | REPORTED (Senate letter) |
| Mar 17, 2026 | Salus P00020, +$124.9M | DOCUMENTED |
| Mar 18–19, 2026 | House Democrats write to the DHS inspector general; NBC publishes the contractor accounts | DOCUMENTED / REPORTED |
| Mar 24, 2026 | Mullin sworn in; Daedalus P00004, +$303.2M | DOCUMENTED |
| Mar 30 / Apr 2, 2026 | Senate and House Democrats write to Walters at Salus | DOCUMENTED |
| May 22, 2026 | Salus P00022, +$200M under Mullin | DOCUMENTED |
| Sep 4, 2026 | Salus P00028, +$50M, term extended to Nov. 21 | DOCUMENTED |
| Sep 7, 2026 | WSJ: the "shadow secretary" story; offers to Qatari and Emirati officials, which both declined | REPORTED |
| Oct 4, 2026 | NYT: the five planes at a markup | REPORTED |
| Oct 8, 2026 | Sens. Blumenthal, Welch and Schiff demand the contracts and all Walters–Noem–Lewandowski communications by Oct. 22 | DOCUMENTED |
| Oct 22, 2026 | WSJ, then CBS, Fox and NYT: DOJ criminal inquiry opened on an inspector general referral | REPORTED |
What the Old Goat Thinks It Means
This part is opinion. An investigation of a person is not an investigation of a contract. Lewandowski left DHS in March. Since he left, the government has added $250 million to the Salus order, and the March 24 aircraft payment went through after the new secretary weighed backing out and was told not to. If the inspector general's referral is about whether one volunteer got paid on the side, a conviction or an acquittal would leave every dollar in the table above where it is.
INFERENCE. Three dates are worth watching. The first is Oct. 22, today, the senators' deadline for the Daedalus contracts and communications; the Old Goat found no published DHS reply. The second is Nov. 21, when the Salus task order runs out. The Daily Beast reports that DHS is preparing to open the work to full competition. The third is any charging decision. That decision belongs to a Justice Department the president calls "my DOJ," and he has already said in public who he thinks the victim is: him.
Counter-evidence, plainly. Every allegation of a kickback comes from unnamed sources or congressional letters, and none has been tested in court. Large emergency contracts get compressed competitions all the time, and the Salus order is not coded as a sole-source award. A $10,000 gift is small next to $1.2 billion in awards, and Walters says he did not know the PAC was Noem's. The aircraft prices come from the Times and outside experts, not from a federal audit. Lewandowski denies all of it.
Related on this site: the ad contracts, the GEO money and the first round of the Lewandowski allegations are in Detention Inc., Section IV; the $20 million CBP ad buy is in Paid For By the U.S. Government; the planes first appeared in The Grievance Swap.Open Investigations →