Noem’s de-facto chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski, has also courted controversey.
According to reports from Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, he fired a Coast Guard pilot after blaming him misplacing Noem’s blanket as they switched from one plane to another on a trip.
Lewandowski reportedly walked into the cockpit of the Coast Guard plane as it was ascending and demanded to know where Noem’s blanket was. In a text with Reuters, Lewandowski disputed the account of the incident, which the media dubbed “blanketgate”.
During a congressional hearing this week, Noem was asked by a lawmaker if she had had “sexual relations” with Lewandowski. She described the suggestion as “tabloid garbage”. Both have previously denied rumours of an affair.
Lewandowski will also be leaving homeland security department, it emerged on Thursday.