WASHINGTON — Kristi Noem may be out as head of the Department of Homeland Security, but Democrats are still demanding a “reckoning.”
Democrats met news of Noem’s ouster Thursday with a cascade of calls for accountability. They ranged from a potential probe into the legality ofcontracts cut during her tenureto a perjury investigation after her congressional testimony to even a push for impeachment to keep her from holding public office in the future.
Democrats vowed to probe Noem’s time as homeland security secretary if they took back power in the November midterm elections, while at least two congressional candidates called for a future criminal prosecution.
“We need a reckoning with the fact that there were murders that took place under her watch. There was mass violence and violation of people’s civil rights and civil liberties. There’s been intense corruption, and there’s been rampant lying in the courts and disobeying of court orders,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who will be chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee if Democrats win this fall, said in an interview Thursday. His panel has oversight of federal immigration enforcement.
“We need to have a cleaning of house at the Department of Homeland Security,” he added, “and a repudiation of all of these terrible policies of corruption, cover-up, lying and authoritarian violence against citizens and immigrants.”
DHS did not respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Ted Lieu of California, a member of House Democratic leadership who is also on the Judiciary Committee, vowed investigations would come.
“She abused her power. She engaged in corruption. She spent millions of taxpayer funds on a luxury jet fleet with beautiful bedrooms, and her masked federal agents killed Americans,” Lieu, the vice chair of the caucus, told NBC News. “We’ll definitely investigate anyone within DHS who violated criminal law.”
Lieu outlined potential lines of inquiry after Noem’s tumultuous tenure, from the deaths of detainees on her watch to the surveillance of Americans who were observing immigration officers to the controversialpurchase of a luxury jet fleet.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.,told The New York Timesthat he would call for the Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations to probe whether Noem lied under oath when she answered questions aboutcompetitive bidding on contracts. Blumenthal is the subcommittee’s top Democrat.
Source: Drudge Report
