DHS Secretary Kristi Noem appeared on Wednesday in front of a House committee.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on March 04, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A Democratic senator says Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem provided false testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In her appearance before the committee on Tuesday, Noem was asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., whether her adviser Corey Lewandowski, who is serving as a special government employee, has any role in approving DHS contracts, and she said no.
“Evidence suggests that your testimony was false. Internal DHS records show that Mr. Lewandowski has personally approved contracts at DHS, including, but not limited to, a multimillion-dollar contract,” according to a letter Blumenthal sent to Noem on Wednesday. “And current and former DHS employees have stated that Mr. Lewandowski’s signature is a green light for money to be transmitted to contractors.”
Blumenthal sent the letter on Wednesday night, after Noem’s testimony in front the House Committee.
In a follow-up appearance before a House committee on Wednesday, Rep. Jared Moskowitz asked Noem if she would like to correct her answer from Tuesday.
“What I would say is that he is an adviser to the Department of Homeland Security,” she said.
Sources have told ABC News that Lewandowski is Noem’s de facto chief of staff, despite having a 130-day cap on being able to work at the department, due to his status as a special government employee.
According to multiple sources, Lewandowski and Noem both approve contracts and “nothing” gets to the secretary without Lewandowski’s approval.
Oftentimes, Lewandowski travels with the secretary to her public events, and on multiple occasions ABC News has seen Lewandowski behind the scenes at events the secretary is speaking at.
When asked by two Democratic representatives if the two were romantically linked, Noem did not deny it and instead called the two Democratic members’ line of questioning “garbage.”
Lewandowski and Noem have both previously denied any romantic relationship. Both are married to other people.
The department didn’t immediately respond to the letter, or about Lewandowski’s role at DHS.
Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) delivers an opening statement during a confirmation hearing for U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 18, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing began with a personal confrontation between fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul as Mullin seeks to take over the Department of Homeland Security from its embattled leader, Kristi Noem.
“You told the media that I was a ‘freaking snake’ and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted,” Paul said.
Paul also pointed to Mullin’s previous public confrontations and said Mullin had “low impulse control.”
“Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken and a damaged lung. Tell me to my face why you think I deserved it. And while you’re at it, explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues,” Paul said.
Paul questioned, “I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits of the proper use of force.”
Before his opening statement, Mullin fired back at Paul.
“I said I could understand, because of the behavior, you were having, that I could understand why your neighbor … did what he did,” Mullin said. “As far as my term of ‘snake in the grass,’ sir, I work around this room to try to fix problems. I’ve worked with many people in this room. It seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us.”
Mullin, who President Donald Trump earlier this month tapped to take over the agency from Noem, asked Paul to let him earn his respect and that he will be secretary for all Americans.
Paul later played a montage of Mullin challenging people to a fight, including a tense moment at a November 2023 Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing when Mullin stood up from his seat and appeared to prepare to physically fight Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien.
“I get it it’s about character assassination for you,” Mullin said to Paul. “That’s the way this game is played. I understand it. And you are making this about you, which is fine.”
Mullin noted that O’Brien came to the hearing on Wednesday as a “close friend.”
“As you can notice over my shoulder is my good friend, Sean O’Brien. Both of us have had conversations and shaken hands and agreed we could have done things different,” Mulin said. “Sean has become a close friend. We talk all the time. I have been on his podcast. It is how you handle your differences. Not like this, chairman.”
Lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee are expected to grill Mullin through the day as the department he’s seeking to lead remains shut down due to a funding stalemate, with no clear end to that shutdown in sight.
Parts of DHS — from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Transportation Security Administration — are shut down amid a funding fight over Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Democrats have said they will fund the department only if changes are made to the agency in the wake of the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Mullin may also face questions about threats to the homeland after DHS warned of potential lone-wolf and cyberattacks amid the ongoing strikes in Iran, according to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by ABC News.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to vote on his nomination on Thursday. After that vote, if his nomination is confirmed, it would then head to the Senate floor where he could be confirmed as soon as next week.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith (C) arrives to testify during a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) —President Donald Trump broke the law, former counsel Jack Smith told committee members Thursday at an appearance before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee.
“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” Smith said. “Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.”
Regarding the 2020 election, Smith said that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
He also said the president illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“After leaving office in January of ’21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Merrill Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information withheld in a ballroom and a bathroom,” Smith said.
Smith also said that the facts and the law supported a prosecution, and that he made decisions not based on politics, but the facts and the law.
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.
“No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said. “To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases, would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.”
He also criticized what he said was the retribution carried out by the president and his allies against agents and prosecutors who investigated the cases.
“My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” he said. “The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what test and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.”
In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan blasted Smith for what he called a partisan investigation into President Donald Trump and other Republicans.
“Democrats have been going after President Trump for ten years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did,” Jordan said.
Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said that Smith proved that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
“Special Counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the public Integrity section. You acted based solely on the facts. The opposite of Donald Trump, who now is purporting to take over,” Raskin said.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
His Thursday appearance marks Smith’s second time before the committee, after he appeared behind closed doors last month. It is customary for former special counsels to appear before Congress publicly to discuss their findings.
In his closed-door testimony, Smith defended his decision to twice bring charges against Trump — telling lawmakers his team “had proof beyond reasonable doubt in both cases” that Trump was guilty of the charges in the 2020 election interference and classified documents cases, according to a transcript of the hearing.
And Smith fervently denied that there was any political influence behind his decision — contrary to allegations of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who requested the testimony — such as pressure from then-President Joe Biden or then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, the transcripts shows.
“No,” Smith responded continuously to those allegations, according to the transcript.
Just over an hour before his testimony on Dec. 17, the Department of Justice sent an email to Smith’s lawyers preventing him from discussing the classified documents case, according to the 255-page transcript of the deposition, released last year by the Judiciary Committee along with a video of the hearing.
This meant Smith was unable to answer most questions on that case and the deposition — intended to ask questions about the alleged weaponization of the DOJ against Trump and his allies — mainly focused on the 2020 election case instead.
His team also said Smith will comply with Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that blocked the release of the second volume of his report.
Smith’s counsel said the DOJ also refused to send a lawyer to advise Smith on whether his statements were in line with their determination of what he could or could not say regarding the cases, according to the deposition. Smith did say, however, that Trump “tried to obstruct justice” in the classified documents investigation “to conceal his continued retention of those documents.
Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, following an all-Senate briefing on Venezuela at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Thursday advanced a war powers resolution, which would block the president’s use of the U.S. armed forces to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress.
A small group of Senate Republicans joined with all Democrats to narrowly advance the resolution by a vote of 52-47. It needed 51 votes to move forward.
Republican Sens. Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, Todd Young, Susan Collins and Josh Hawley voted with all Democrats in favor of the legislation.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, pushed for the resolution to receive a vote immediately after President Donald Trump announced U.S. forces carried out a large-scale attack in Venezuela, capturing dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, who are facing federal charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine.
“Where will this go next? Will the President deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza To battle terrorists in Nigeria To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people’s elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk,” Kaine said in a statement on Jan. 3.
Kaine added it was “long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy and trade.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Republican Sen. Paul and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff co-sponsored Kaine’s resolution.
The legislation, if finally approved by the Senate, would still need to be approved by the House and signed by the president. The bill did not pass the Senate with a veto-proof majority and it seems unlikely that Trump would sign it into law.
The Senate considered a similar resolution last November that narrowly failed to get the 50 votes it needed to pass. Sens. Paul and Murkowski voted with all Democrats to advance it at the time.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote, many Republicans distanced themselves from the effort.
“Let’s be clear about what that resolution does and what it does not do. It does not reassert Congress’s powers. It does not make America stronger. It makes America weaker and less safe,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It would weaken the President’s legitimate, constitutional authority. This body, the United States Senate, is being asked whether the President of the United States has the authority to arrest indicted criminals. Of course he does. Democrats want to weaken the President’s ability to enforce the law. That is the wrong message to send to hardened drug traffickers and to dictators,” Barrasso added.
