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- Tell Congress: Claw Back Noem's $100 Million Jet Giveaway
Tell Congress: Claw Back Noem's $100 Million Jet Giveaway
Hours before Kristi Noem left Homeland Security, her department signed off on five airplanes from Daedalus Aviation, a company whose chairman gave $10,000 in 2024 to a committee created to support her.
The prices were jaw-dropping, according to new reporting by The New York Times. DHS agreed to pay $108 million for a Boeing 737 converted into a flying penthouse with two bedrooms, marble showers and a bar. Daedalus had bought it a few months earlier from a seller asking less than $90 million. Two luxury Gulfstreams cost $106 million after the seller paid about $83 million. Two 17-year-old passenger jets went for $45 million apiece, a price experts called well above market.
The seller may have pocketed as much as $100 million. And the planes meant for deportation flights are largely sitting idle. The five are part of a no-bid deal for ten used aircraft reportedly costing about $464 million.
The money Noem wasted could have kept clinics open, stocked food pantries, and funded schools, the same priorities we're always told the country can't afford.
Noem has demanded a retraction, but she also refused to answer questions about the prices or contract terms. The seller says its chairman didn't know the committee was tied to her. But that's exactly why Congress must test those claims with contracts, pricing records and sworn testimony, not press statements.
Congress, which holds the power of the purse, must subpoena the seller, open the books, and recover every dollar paid above fair value. Noem may have left office, but this still matters: the money is still spent, and the contract still hasn't been made public.
If officials can hand a windfall to a politically connected seller on their way out the door and face no consequences, taxpayers will keep footing the bill for dollar after dollar wasted by corrupt Trump officials.
Thanks for all that you do,
Matt from the Swarm