‘As Dead as Fried Chicken’: Why Trump Finally Fired Noem (1)

Kristi Noem’s 13-month tenure leading the Department of Homeland Security was marked by controversy. But it wasn’t the two American citizens’ deaths at the hands of federal immigration agents that ultimately cost her the job, nor the allegations of an affair with an adviser, or the criticism that she was slow to provide federal reimbursements to states after natural disasters.

Instead, she was taken down by an almost quarter-billion-dollar advertising campaign starring herself.

On Tuesday, she told a Senate committee the contract for the campaign had gone to competitive bid. On Wednesday, before the House, she acknowledged it hadn’t. ...