Seven weeks after President Trump removed her as Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem has continued using the waterfront government residence at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling that she occupied as a Cabinet member, with a black Suburban SUV associated with her spotted parked outside the property this week and US Coast Guard officials confirming they have seen her on the base in recent days, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Noem moved into the house on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in August 2025 after Trump fired then-Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan, taking up residence in a property typically designated for the Coast Guard commandant after claiming she needed the security of military protection following protesters and paparazzi discovering the address of her private residences during the administration’s aggressive anti-immigration campaign.
Her formal removal came on March 5, 2026, when Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the new DHS Secretary, ending Noem’s tenure amid a cascade of controversies that included false statements made under oath before congressional committees, the use of taxpayer funds for personal expenses, and the high-profile dismissals at her own department.
During her subsequent appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Noem insisted she was paying her own way at the property, saying directly: “I rent that facility. I rent where I stay and pay personal dollars to do that,” a statement that sits in tension with a Washington Post report from last year indicating she had been living there rent-free.
Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Kevin Lunday currently lives in the nearly identical neighbouring home assigned to the vice commandant but has told associates he intends to move into the house Noem is occupying “imminently,” which would in turn allow Vice Commandant Thomas G. Allan Jr. to take Lunday’s current residence, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The situation is further complicated by Corey Lewandowski, Noem’s reported paramour, who has been spotted at the waterfront property “as recently as this month” according to sources cited by the Journal, adding a second person without any official standing to a residence on a secured military installation typically reserved for the service’s top officer.
Democrats were withering in their response, with the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats posting on X: “Hello, @USCG, we’d like to report a squatter,” while former Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock asked publicly: “So Kristi Noem has a pretend job but a real Coast Guard home and all on the taxpayers dime after all the wreckage she’s cost us already?”
The “pretend job” reference is to the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a Western Hemisphere diplomatic role that Trump reportedly created specifically for Noem, with critics characterising it as a placeholder designed to keep her in government orbit and outside the competitive field for South Dakota’s Senate seat rather than a substantive diplomatic assignment.
A source told The Daily Beast that Noem had vacated the property before her lease’s expiration and had returned only briefly to collect personal belongings, a characterisation that conflicts with the photographic evidence of her SUV parked outside the residence and the Coast Guard officials who report seeing her on the base as recently as this week.
Neither Noem nor Lewandowski has responded to the latest reports, the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard have not issued public statements on the arrangement, and no timeline for Noem’s departure from the property has been publicly established, leaving the Coast Guard’s second most senior official without his designated residence while the situation continues to generate negative headlines for an administration that has repeatedly positioned itself as a defender of accountability in government spending.
