Congressional Democrats are referring outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to the Justice Department for lying under oath during her oversight hearings before the House and Senate earlier this month.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking members of their chambers’ respective judiciary committees, asked Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday to open a perjury investigation into Noem’s “demonstrably false statements” in front of Congress on March 3 and 4.
“A number of her statements appear to violate criminal statutes prohibiting perjury and knowingly making false statements to Congress,” they wrote in a seven-page letter, citing two federal laws to support their request.
“After months of evading our Committees’ requests to testify in routine oversight hearings, Secretary Noem made a series of demonstrably false statements in a brazen attempt to undermine critical congressional oversight of the Department of Homeland Security,” the letter states.
The top Democrats point to Noem’s testimony on whether the Department of Homeland Security complies with court orders as an example of a false statement. They argued DHS has repeatedly defied court orders, but Noem insisted otherwise.