Noem got canned, but all the DHS jets she bought are flying high

The day after President Trump fired James Comey in 2017, he called the FBI’s acting director, Andrew McCabe, demanding to know why Comey had been allowed to get on the FBI’s private jet* immediately afterward. Comey had flown to Los Angeles on the jet that morning and was famously in the middle of a speech when he was fired. Trump was apparently pissed Comey hadn’t been forced fly commercial back to DC.

So on March 5, when Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem while she, too, was in the middle of a speech – this time in Nashville – I immediately wanted to know how she was going to get home. After all, had not her purchase of numerous jets using DHS funds and the negative attention on them contributed to her downfall?

As I first reported on Feb. 26, DHS has recently acquired nine jets, with another on the way, comprising:

• A luxury Boeing Business Jet (737) kitted out with a queen bed, showers, a kitchen, four flat-screen TVs, and an estimated $70 million price tag, which DHS claimed would be used for both Cabinet-level travel and deportations;

• Two luxury Gulfstream 700s for US Coast Guard, to replace one of the command-and-control aircraft that high-level USCG and DHS officials use, at an estimated cost of $170-200 million (one delivery pending);

• Two Gulfstream 650s, purchased via contractor shell companies, price and purpose unknown;

• Five Boeing 737s passenger jets from Avelo Airlines to be used for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own deportation fleet, purchased via a contractor shell company for approximately $140 million.

It was easy enough to figure out which one she’d taken to Nashville: the USCG G7, the jet she seemed to have preferred recently, if her many photos with it on the DHS Flickr page are any indication.

About an hour after the news broke, the plane was airborne again, and it was soon clear it was not taking her home to her alleged love nest in a house meant for a Coast Guard officer, but home home, to Watertown, SD.

Trump was reportedly angry Noem had pinned her $220-million propaganda campaign on him and by her nondenial of the alleged affair, but apparently not angry enough to yank access to the jet or deny her a golden parachute, in the form of a new job as “Envoy to the Shield of the Americas.” Noem will remain DHS secretary through the end of March, Trump said.

Noem also appears to have taken the jet to Miami ahead of the Trump’s Saturday summit with Latin American countries at his Doral golf club, where she notably did not speak. The aircraft returned to Watertown afterward, where it remained as of Monday afternoon. Lewandowski also attended the event, though it is unclear if he arrived or left with her.

Hogwash on the Hill

During the Senate hearings last week, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) pressed her on the luxury BBJ – dubbed “the fuckjet” on Bluesky – repeatedly asking her if there is “a bedroom” onboard (there were actually two).

Noem said “the bedroom” (there were two!) was being removed, that she’d only flown on it once, and that it was being used as a long-range command and control aircraft (LRCCA), which “is dictated in statute by Congress for the Department of Homeland Security to have a plane.”

She’s right about that, but here’s the thing: DHS already has three LRCCAs, with another on the way! That’s the purpose of the Coast Guard’s Gulfstreams; they have been DHS’s designated LRCCAs for some time. The second one was added in 2022, and while $50 million had been budgeted to replace the first one – which was getting a little old – Noem decided to replace it with two, and to upgrade to a more expensive model that not even the Air Force has.

So DHS already has its LRCCA needs more than met without the BBJ. Claiming its purchase was necessitated by statute is hogwash.

As for her claim she only flew on the f̶u̶c̶k̶j̶e̶t̶ BBJ once, it’s possible that’s true? Archive flight data shows four instances in which the aircraft used a callsign indicating there was a high-level official onboard (EXEC1F). One flew at a time we know Noem was in DC and so couldn't have been her. Another, on Jan. 29, made a stop in Watertown and so almost certainly was her. The other two were flights between Joint Base Andrews and West Palm Beach – the nearest airport to Mar-a-Lago, and I haven’t been able to determine who the “exec" was onboard.

Even if true, the BBJ’s acquisition and use is especially wasteful if high-level officials aren’t onboard. Flight data shows this plane island-hopped around the Caribbean in mid-January – why? And it followed one of the Coast Guard jets around the Middle East in mid-December, as The War Zone previously reported, when we know she was in the region – why?

I hope there are more hearings in her remaining weeks at DHS, because God knows her spokespeople haven’t answered these questions when they’re coming from me.

Surprise Maiden Voyages for the Real Deportation Fleet

On March 5, the same day of Noem’s firing, something happened that I had been waiting on for months: One the 737s DHS bought from Avelo emerged from the Lake Charles facility where had been getting a new paint job, and perhaps some remodeling to prep it for ICE duty. It flew to Dulles International Airport that night and parked in an area visible to public view, so I decided to head over there the next morning. When I woke up, it was gone.

Where it went next was not on my bingo card of predictions: Crete. Since then it has made at least five round trips between Europe and the Middle East, sometimes using a callsign that, according to the ICE flight tracker “JJ in DC,” is used by the State Department.

Exactly which cities in the Middle East it has landed in is hard to determine from the flight data, likely due to wartime signal jamming. But it’s clear what is happening: The Trump administration scrambled one of its new deportation jets to evacuate American civilians from the stupid war it started.

And it isn’t just this one: In recent days, two more of DHS’s recently acquired jets have joined the evacuation effort. And you know what? Good. Helping to clean up Trump’s dangerous mess is a thousand times more useful than expelling our immigrant friends and neighbors will ever be.

An avgeek spotted one of the deportation jets during a fuel stop in Belfast, revealing a weirdly familiar paint job.

If you’re thinking, like I did, Dang, that sure looks a lot like the Buffalo Bills logo, allow me to remind you that Trump tried to buy the NFL team in 2014. In fact, as Noah Shachtman reported for Rolling Stone, his failure to buy it contributed directly to his decision to run for president the next year – and to the 2024 civil fraud judgment against him for inflating his net worth.

Patriots Warzone Plane-spotting

Speaking of the NFL and Trump’s impulsive, poorly planned war, on March 6, a Trump appointee at the State Department posted this to X, the Everything App:

Regular readers will already know that Patriots owner Robert Kraft lends these planes out when the team isn’t using them, and they are occasionally spotted doing disaster relief, vaccine delivery, military transport – oh and the occasional deportation charter!

At first blush it may appear like this photo shows Kraft did a favor for his friend Trump, but the full story is more like Trump endangered his friend’s jet, along with many others in the region.

As I noted on March 4, this Patriots jet was doing a scheduled military rotator route in the small hours of Feb. 28, leaving Kuwait and flying through the Persian Gulf before hanging a right toward Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. A few hours later, the US and Israel attacked Iran. Missiles and drones were soon flying across the Gulf, and six US servicemembers were killed at the base the Patriots plane had just left.

The plane stayed grounded for the next six days, until the airspace it needed to pass through was safe enough to reopen. (And Camp Lemonnier is the worst US base at which to be stuck.)

So yes, the Patriots jet, operated by Omni Air International, appears to have picked up these folks in Dubai on its return trip to the US, likely for an enormous high-risk fee. But it was already out there, was endangered, got stuck and regular rotator route has quite literally been blown up. This was a cherry on top of a shit sandwich.

*There are at least two FBI private jets. In 2017, the bureau was leasing the one Comey used and now appears to own it; it's the same jet Kash Patel took to party with hockey players in Italy last month. He appears to have stopped using the other one, perhaps after numerous stories last year about his using it to visit his girlfriend.

Thank you for reading. I am a former Washington Post staff writer, and as far as I know, the only journalist in America covering ICE flights full time. I am committed to keeping this reporting non-paywalled, but if you are able, please sign up for a paid subscription or send me a one-time tip, so I can continue this important work. –Gillian