Corey Lewandowski, who has long served as an adviser and ally to President Trump and who worked closely with now-fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem may have, according to NBC News, been requesting a “success fee” as part of his work securing contracts for the department’s immigration and deportation work.
This news comes as Noem was fired in the wake of new reporting and a Senate grilling about her decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars awarding contracts and producing advertisements for DHS that largely featured her, sometimes riding on a horse. Noem also faced criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for her management of Trump’s mass deportation and immigration enforcement agenda, which featured brutal, violent and lethal occupations of U.S. cities by ICE agents throughout the first year-plus of Trump’s second term. ICE agents were responsible for killing and injuring several U.S. citizens and non-citizens as part of these operations.
According to a new report from NBC News, Lewandowski, who was serving Noem as a top adviser, requested to be paid in exchange for helping to facilitate and expand contracts between DHS and GEO Group, a private prison company. The company already held about $1 billion in federal contracts and, during the transition, Lewandowski reportedly told George Zoley, the founder of GEO Group, that he “wanted to be paid in exchange for protecting and growing GEO Group’s DHS contracts, according to a senior DHS official and three people familiar with their discussion,” NBC News reported. (A spokesperson for Lewandowski denied NBC’s account of the Trump official’s conversations with the private prison group.)
Zoley reportedly refused and spent the next several months trying to fix the relationship. The two reportedly met again in the spring of 2025 and it did not go well for Zoley, according to NBC News:
Zoley offered to put Lewandowski on retainer — a recurring consulting fee — with GEO Group, according to two industry sources familiar with the matter.
Lewandowski balked, saying he wanted to be compensated based on the company’s new or renewed contracts with DHS, the two sources said.
“He wanted payments — what some people would call a success fee,” said a person with knowledge of the meeting.
Zoley declined, the two sources said. In the months that followed, the length of two of GEO Group’s federal contracts shrank, and currently several of its facilities that could house migrants sit idle, even as Congress and Trump have poured money into DHS to execute the mass deportation campaign. GEO Group officials believe that is tied to their not agreeing to Lewandowski’s solicitations, said a source familiar with the GEO Group officials’ thinking.
You can read more of the details here.
Retribution Crusade Hits Comey
Former FBI Director James Comey was subpoenaed as part of some sort of sweeping “grand conspiracy” investigation that one of Trump’s federal prosecutor allies in Florida is running, focused on the FBI’s past investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election to aide Trump and the other prosecutions of Trump that took place before he was reelected. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason A. Reding Quiñones is a Trump appointee who is leading the investigation.
Axios was first to report on the Comey subpoena, citing two sources with “knowledge of the situation.” The subpoena was issued to Comey last week and is related to the Intelligence Community Assessment he wrote in 2017 about Russia’s interference in our election.
What’s more, per Axios:
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee who threw out the 2023 federal prosecution against him in his classified documents case, is overseeing the grand jury based out of Fort Pierce in the Southern District of Florida.
FBI Has Been Investigating Joe Kent
Before he resigned from his post at the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI was reportedly investigating Joe Kent over allegations that he shared classified information, Semafor reported. Right after he resigned, many Trump allies jumped to paint him as a leaker.
Kent is hardly the martyr for the moment, but he is representative of the growing faction of the MAGA movement that has been onboard with all of Trump II’s goals and objectives up until this point. Kent is a far-right extremist, who has ties to white supremacists, far-right militia movements and anti-government and anti-vax ideology. He resigned over Trump’s war in Iran, which he claimed “posed no imminent threat” to the U.S. in his resignation letter.
Senate Republicans Endorse Mullin Replacement
Even though the Republican chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), expressed extreme reservations around Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security, his nomination moved out of committee in a vote on Thursday. Paul cited both personal grievances, such as the time Mullin allegedly told Paul he understood why Paul’s neighbor assaulted him, and professional shortcomings, like the fact that Mullin made some strange and seemingly impossible to verify claims about taking classified trips as a member of the House.
Senate Republican leadership is expected to bring Mullin’s nomination to the floor for a vote next week. And they’re already mulling who they want to tap to replace him in the Senate, according to Politico. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) have endorsed Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) for the seat if Mullin is confirmed and has to vacate.
“He will be a great asset in the Senate and has my full support and endorsement,” Thune said.
In Case You Missed It
New from David Kurtz: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Wrongfully Deported More Than 100 Asylum Seekers
From Josh Kovensky and Emine Yücel: The Pentagon is Setting Congress Up For a Vote That Could Provide Backdoor War Authorization
New edition of The Franchise from TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: Maricopa County’s GOP Recorder Won’t Block DOJ Overreach
Morning Memo: It’s My War and I’ll Cry If I Want To
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Markwayne’s World: The ‘Cinematic’ And ‘Fantastical’ Life Of Trump’s DHS Pick
What We Are Reading
‘Armageddon scenario’ for gas markets as Qatar hit by missiles
Trump digs in on Powell, suggesting DOJ probe should continue
Pentagon weighs sending more troops to Middle East
