US Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) is opening a congressional investigation into Corey Lewandowski—the Windham operative who managed Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign—over allegations that he solicited personal payments from government contractors while effectively running the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Hassan, a senior member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, demanded that Lewandowski turn over records including emails, texts, and Signal messages from his personal devices—and answer detailed questions by June 26.“Reports that you demanded personal financial compensation from government contractors in exchange for favorable contract decisions, if true, indicate significant corruption and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Hassan wrote in a press release announcing the investigation.
Few figures have traded longer on proximity to Trump.
Lewandowski managed the president’s 2016 primary campaign, held senior adviser roles on the 2020 and 2024 campaigns, and spent years as a top consultant to then-Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD). When she became DHS secretary, he followed as an unpaid “special government employee”—a part-time designation that allowed him to operate as the department’s de facto chief of staff, reportedly reviewing every contract worth more than $100,000 before it reached Noem’s desk.
According to the letter, that perch became a tollbooth. During the presidential transition, Lewandowski allegedly asked the head of GEO Group—the private prison company that runs DHS detention facilities—for payment in exchange for protecting and growing its contracts. After GEO Group refused, he reportedly ordered that the company receive no further contracts.
In another episode, government contractor Salus Worldwide allegedly invited a marketing firm onto a $20 million DHS contract only if it hired Lewandowski’s handpicked consultants—”[w]e need to make sure we are properly thanking the person who gave [the contract] to us,” a Salus representative reportedly said. In May 2025, Salus won a fast-tracked DHS contract worth nearly $1 billion to help run the Trump administration’s self-deportation program despite a lack of relevant experience.
The Trump network threads through the rest of the letter.
A $250,000 public affairs contract—open for just 31 hours, with preference for applicants who “served in a cabinet agency during the first Trump presidency”—went to a political firm run by Lewandowski’s former associates. A $220 million ad campaign put Noem on horseback in front of Mount Rushmore. And a $140 million contract to overhaul deportation-flight aircraft went to a company owned by a major Trump and Noem donor. “Additional contracts under your watch underscore your flagrant conflicts of interest,” Hassan wrote.
The letter also recounts allegations that Lewandowski sought a law enforcement badge and a federally issued gun without federal training, that the official who refused was passed over for promotion, and that he “fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after Secretary Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane.”
It is not the first time Lewandowski’s conduct has made news.
In March 2016, while running Trump’s first presidential campaign, he was charged with simple battery after grabbing Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields as she tried to question Trump following a press conference at his golf club in Jupiter, Florida. The Trump campaign said he was “absolutely innocent of this charge.”
A representative for Lewandowski has denied the contracting allegations, telling NBC News in March, “This is absolutely false and did not happen.”
Even Trump’s inner circle has reportedly heard the complaints. NBC News reported that GEO Group and other contractors complained to the president’s advisers that Lewandowski stood to personally profit, and later, that Trump began asking aides whether that was true after he fired Noem in March.
DHS confirmed on March 28 that Lewandowski “no longer has a role”” at the department. The DHS inspector general has launched its own contracting investigation, and Democrats on the House Oversight and Senate homeland security panels opened inquiries this spring.
The letter warns that Lewandowski’s reported avoidance of government email and phones, plus his part-time status, may mean DHS never properly retained his records—and orders him to return any still in his possession.
Lewandowski is a longtime fixture in New Hampshire politics.
A Lowell, Massachusetts, native who lives in Windham, he told the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2019, “I have been here my entire adult life.” He built his base as state director of Americans for Prosperity New Hampshire, the Koch-funded conservative group, and got his start in the state running US Sen. Bob Smith’s unsuccessful 2002 re-election campaign.
For all that, he has never won elected office. His lone bid came in 2012, when he ran for Windham town treasurer—pledging to “post all invoices and checks online within 24 hours”—and lost. He has circled bigger races since, weighing a 2020 Senate run against Jeanne Shaheen before backing off and, last fall, floating a primary challenge to Gov. Kelly Ayotte as the White House leaned on her over redistricting.
