Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem jump-started a stalled pier project in Naples, Florida, after a major donor called to complain.
The historic pier was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022, and frustrated city officials had been trying for months to get disaster assistance funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is overseen by Noem’s Department of Homeland Security, ProPublica reported.
But after donor Sinan Gursoy got involved, Noem quickly expedited more than $11 million to rebuild the pier, which is a couple of miles from a home owned by Noem’s de facto chief of staff Corey Lewandowski, according to ProPublica.
Noem and Lewandowski have long been rumored to be having an affair, which one official with President Donald Trump’s administration called the “worst-kept secret” in Washington, D.C. Both have denied being romantically involved.
FEMA has come under fire for bottlenecks and delays ever since Noem implemented a policy requiring her to personally sign off on purchases of more than $100,000.
When deadly floods hit Texas this summer, Noem waited days to sign off on funding to deploy search and rescue teams, and thousands of disaster relief calls when unanswered because she hadn’t renewed the contract with call centers.
Sen. Ted Budd has also complained about being unable to reach Noem’s office to get funding authorized to rebuild in North Carolina from last year’s devastating Hurricane Helene.
Officials trying to rebuild the pier in Naples, which is a major tourist attraction, were also getting desperate as they tried to navigate delays at FEMA, which were further exacerbated by Trump’s government layoffs, ProPublica reported.
“We were told yesterday that Secretary Noem would have to ‘personally’ approve the Pier project before FEMA funding would be obligated,” a city official wrote to Sen. Rick Scott’s staff.
When that didn’t work, Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann decided to personally reach out to Noem and concluded that the best way to get her attention was through Gursoy, a local cardiologist who donated at least $25,000 to Noem’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign in South Dakota.
Naples is home to CEOs and billionaires, and is an important fundraising stop for Republican politicians, according to ProPublica. Noem visited the area at least 10 times during her last four years as South Dakota governor and has held multiple fundraisers there.
Heitmann texted Gursoy, who then texted Noem, according to messages that ProPublica received as part of a public records request. Within 24 hours, Gursoy wrote back saying Heitmann could soon expect news from Noem’s “FEMA fixer.”
That was on Aug. 11, and by Aug. 27, Naples officials were seeing a “flurry of activity” from FEMA, which said it planned to expedite the pier’s funding. Two days later, Noem flew to Naples and visited the pier with Heitmann before having dinner at a French restaurant with Gursoy.
She stayed through the weekend at the four-star Naples Bay Resort & Marina. Reached for comment by ProPublica, DHS declined to say whether the government paid for the trip.
Lewandowski told ProPublica that he was not involved in the pier decision and was not in Naples during Noem’s visit. Gursoy said “get lost” and hung up when he was reached by phone.
In a statement to ProPublica, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “This has nothing to do with politics: Secretary Noem also visited Ruidoso, NM”—where floods killed three people in July—“at the request of a Democrat governor and has been integral in supporting and speeding up their recovery efforts.”
The Daily Beast has also reached out for comment.
Experts told ProPublica that the Naples project heightened concerns about the discretion that Noem has given herself at DHS, where she had the power to inject political favoritism into an agency responsible for saving lives and rebuilding communities destroyed by disaster.
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