What Happened At Kristi Noem’s Congressional Hearing That Got Her Fired
A bombshell letter from a top government watchdog is raising serious questions about whether the Department of Homeland Security obstructed oversight during a critical investigation tied to the attempted assassination…
A bombshell letter from a top government watchdog is raising serious questions about whether the Department of Homeland Security obstructed oversight during a critical investigation tied to the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump.
Just days before Kristi Noem was removed from her position, Trump-appointed Inspector General Joseph Cuffari sent a sharply worded letter to Congress accusing DHS leadership of “systematically obstructing” his office’s investigations. According to Cuffari, officials repeatedly blocked access to key information tied to probes involving the department, including one examining the Secret Service’s failures surrounding the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
At the center of the dispute is a highly compartmentalized intelligence program that Cuffari’s office says it needed in order to determine what went wrong that day. Despite authorization from the data owner, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis allegedly refused to grant the inspector general’s team access.
“I&A refuses to conduct the purely ministerial act of indoctrinating OIG personnel into a compartmented program,” Cuffari wrote in the letter while outlining what he described as “instances of unreasonable denial.”
According to the watchdog, that refusal directly hindered an ongoing review into the Butler assassination attempt.
“I&A’s intransigence is impeding an OIG review related to the July 13, 2024, attempt to assassinate then-former President Donald Trump,” Cuffari wrote. He added that the situation is especially alarming given other reported threats against Trump and the increasingly unstable global environment.
The letter details 11 separate incidents where the inspector general claims his office was denied access to records or databases necessary for investigations and audits. One particularly troubling example involved a request for access to a DHS-controlled database tied to a criminal investigation with national security implications. Cuffari said the department’s refusal to cooperate risked undermining both the investigation and any potential prosecution that could result from it.