A top Donald Trump ally serving as the de facto chief of staff for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi “ICE Barbie” Noem is being blamed by frustrated officials for slowing down the agency’s work.

Sources at FEMA, which falls under the DHS, and a senior administration official told Politico that former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has inserted himself into the approval process for all DHS contracts and grants over $100,000, creating what one of them called an “insane” extra layer of bureaucracy.

Lewandowski’s red tape bottleneck has meant even relatively minor grants can take weeks to move through DHS.

“Corey is part of the problem,” the Trump administration official said. “It doesn’t matter how quickly we get it there. It doesn’t just go straight to her desk.”

Noem was alr

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