Noem’s Scandal-Hit $1BN Failure Rocked by Exodus: ‘Writing Is on the Wall’

EXCLUSIVE: Senior staffers are leaving Salus as it risks losing its lucrative contract to run Donald Trump’s Project Homecoming self-deportation scheme amid allegations of DHS corruption.

Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images/Reuters

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A raft of senior employees has departed the scandal-hit firm chosen by Kristi Noem to run Donald Trump’s $1 billion flagship self-deportation scheme—including three in the same week—as the failing program slips further into crisis, PunchUp has learned.

The eyebrow-raising exodus from Salus Worldwide Solutions—founded and run by Trump crony and former State Department surgeon William Walters III—comes in the wake of our June 30 revelation that it could be stripped of its lucrative three-year Department of Homeland Security contract to run Project Homecoming, having burnt through all its money within a year while delivering poor results.

Will Walters’ response to the spotlight falling on his company’s delivery of Project Homecoming has been to attack journalists and their sources. (Photo credit: LinkedIn)

Three senior employees left the company, which, according to court documents, employs around 300 people, within days of one another at the end of May. They follow two others in the two months before that.

The departures come ahead of Salus likely being forced to re-compete for the remainder of the $915 million Project Homecoming contract amid questions about its suitability to run such a major program. Last Friday, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote to Secretary Markwayne Mullin, citing PunchUp’s ongoing investigation into the contract, to demand he “take immediate action to stop this wasteful and corrupt spending” and “cancel” the deal.

DHS is facing wide-ranging investigations into how contracts were awarded under former Secretary Noem, 54, and her chief adviser and rumored lover Corey Lewandowski, 52. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Lewandowski “may have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts,” and that investigators are considering a potential criminal referral to the Justice Department.

A Salus source said the timing of the exits was “interesting,” and told us the latest departees could “see the writing on the wall.” There is no suggestion they were linked to the Lewandowski allegations or those made by Rep. Thompson.