Noem’s $1BN Failure Firm Faced Closure Threat After Basic Paperwork Flub: ‘Clown Show’
EXCLUSIVE: The future of Salus, the crisis-hit company facing the possible loss of its contract to run Donald Trump’s Project Homecoming program, was saved after a handy PunchUp reminder.
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The “clown show” company chosen by Kristi Noem to oversee Donald Trump’s failing $1 billion flagship self-deportation scheme was briefly at risk of being dissolved after failing to file the most basic of paperwork, PunchUp can reveal.
We reported on June 26 that the Department of Homeland Security had bailed out Salus Worldwide Solutions—founded and run by Trump crony and former State Department surgeon William Walters III—in May with a short $200 million extension, four days before revealing that it could lose its lucrative three-year contract to run Project Homecoming, having already been stripped of running a fleet of government planes, including the notorious Noem and Melania Trump mile-high boudoir jet.
On July 10, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote to Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding he “cancel” the deal and “take immediate action to stop this wasteful and corrupt spending.” His letter cited PunchUp’s ongoing investigation into the contract.
Set to the backdrop of that turmoil, over that weekend PunchUp noticed that Salus’s status in the Virginia State Corporation Commission register was “Pendinact,” and that it was listed as being “Not in Good Standing,” after missing the June 30 deadline to file its annual report. Short for “Pending Inactive,” it means the company was at risk of being terminated if it did not provide the document.
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