This Trumpworld enabler's 'shady' government role underscores MAGA’s tactlessness: analysis

Corey Lewandowski at a MAGA rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on March 2, 2020

Corey Lewandowski was an early participant in the MAGA movement. During a January 2015 meeting in Trump Tower — months before Donald Trump officially announced his 2016 presidential campaign — Lewandowski agreed to become his campaign manager. In April 2016, that role was taken over by Paul Manafort and, after that, Kellyanne Conway.

A decade later, Lewandowski is allied with Trump's second administration and is considered a "special government employee" — the same title applied to Tesla/SpaceX leader Elon Musk when he was heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). And Trump's first 2016 campaign manager enjoys what Slate's Christina Cauterucci describes as a "nontraditional role" in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In an article published on August 12, Cauterucci reports that although Lewandowski technically is "not officially on the DHS roster" and does not "draw a DHS salary," he "is performing the functions of Secretary Kristi Noem's chief of staff."

"Often, he is the only one by her side at meetings," Cauterucci explains. "According to CNN, he approved billions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency grants to be funneled to Republican-led states, demanded that personnel take polygraph tests after a leak to the press, ordered the firing of government workers, and asked that others be placed on leave for infractions such as using gender pronouns in an e-mail…. That the de facto No. 2 at DHS is an unpaid, unofficial dude with potential conflicts of interest and a history of drawing physical and sexual abuse allegations would be troubling enough on its own. But there's another layer to this story."

The Slate reporter adds, "For years, sources have been telling reporters that Lewandowski and Noem are dating, though they're each married to other people. In 2021, Noem tweeted that claims of an affair published on conservative website American Greatness were 'total garbage and a disgusting lie.'"

Cauterucci stresses that regardless of whether or not "the affair rumors are true," the "Noem-Lewandowski situation is a perfect encapsulation of the Trump Administration's ethos."

"Breaches of government norms, nepotism, sexual impropriety, ethical violations, doing shady things in plain sight — it's all part of the MAGA package," Cauterucci writes. "Perhaps the only surprising part, if the reports are true, is that the alleged romance has lasted this long. Half a decade would be a lifetime in affair years, especially in the backstabbing crucible of Trump's inner orbit."