Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem probably loves guacamole, because she sure doesn’t mind paying extra.

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Noem bought five airplanes from Daedalus Aviation Corporation at a mind-boggling markup on her last morning at the Department of Homeland Security.

Daedalus’ chair, William Walters, had donated $10,000 to Noem’s political action committee American Resolve in 2024, according to the Times. The company told the paper that Walters did not know the PAC was associated with Noem at the time.

But as the Times points out, an archived version of American Resolve’s website shows Noem’s face and name plastered all over it.

It also seems that Walters got way more than a tax break in return.

DHS agreed to pay Daedalus $108 million for a luxe Boeing 737 airliner that had recently undergone a swanky renovation. The aircraft, which was converted into a private jet, came “complete with a stand-up bar, two bedrooms, marble showers and a table covered in manta ray skin,” per The Times.

The sea creature furniture isn’t the most ludicrous part, either. The Times obtained documents showing Daedalus had bought the plane just months earlier for less than $90 million.

Along with this jet, DHS also agreed to buy two smaller Gulfstream luxury jets for $106 million. But Daedalus had spent only about $83 million to buy them, according to the documents.

DHS also bought two 17-year-old Boeing 737 passenger planes for “$45 million apiece,” documents show. The Times reached out to multiple aviation experts who said that price was “millions of dollars higher than the typical market value for jets of that age.”

President Donald Trump fired Noem in early March after a series of scandals involving, among other things, expenditures at DHS. She stayed in her position, however, until her successor Markwayne Mullin took over later in the month.

Two White House officials told The Times that Mullin had toyed with the idea of backing out of the deal “but feared a significant financial penalty.” After Mullin mulled things over with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who shared his concerns, he decided to let the purchase go through.

The Times added that Noem, who is now a special envoy at the State Department, “declined to answer specific questions about the sale or the prices that her agency had paid.”

But she raged about the story on X Sunday, calling the Times’ report “factually incorrect” and “libelous.”

In her lengthy response to the “DISHONEST” New York Times, she also made a demand.

“I write to formally request the retraction entirely or explicit correction of the article titled ‘Kristi Noem’s Agency Gave Her Donor a Lucrative Contract Just Before She Left,’” Noem wrote.

She added that describing Walters as a “donor” was “materially misleading” and “conveys a false implication of a direct financial relationship obviously intended to influence official action.”

“Numerous times clarifications were made to the journalists responsible for this libelous story,” Noem wrote.

In response to the DISHONEST @nytimes about their factually incorrect   article today…I write to formally request the retraction entirely or explicit correction of the article titled 'Kristi Noem’s Agency Gave Her Donor a Lucrative Contract Just Before She Left.' The…

In response to her statement, a few X users pointed out Noem’s statement did not deny the mindblowing amount of money she spent on the planes — or the peculiar timing of the purchase.

The Times stood by its reporting in the comment section of Noem’s post.

“We stand by the characterization of the political donor and his firm,” the Times wrote on X. “As our article makes clear, the Department of Homeland Security bought five airplanes from Daedalus at a substantial markup, a deal approved during Ms. Noem’s tenure. Daedalus’s chairman is William Walters, who gave $10,000 to the American Resolve political action committee, a group that existed to support Ms. Noem.”

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