State Dept. Boots Four of Noem’s Imported Cronies; Noem Soon to Follow?

Kristi Noem doesn’t seem to be doing much at her new fake job running “Shield of the Americas”:

Kristi Noem might be fired soon from her latest position within the Trump administration.

The former Homeland Security chief has barely put in a lick of work at her new government job, sparking questions about Noem’s ongoing tenure within the Trump administration, State Department officials told the Daily Mail.

…So far, the bloc has not achieved much under Noem’s stewardship.

…Noem, meanwhile, took just one meeting last week via teleconference, senior State Department officials told the British gossip tabloid.

“This post was intended as a soft landing so it didn’t look like Noem was immediately being fired,” one State Department insider told the Mail. “But no one really thinks she should have this job. The State Department was not happy to have her here and the understanding is that she’s not going to be here for much longer” [Ellie Quinlan Houghtailing, “Kristi Noem’s New Job Is Going About as Well as You’d Expect,” The New Republic via Yahoo News, 2026.04.10].

You’d think Noem would be getting lots of work done with the big entourage she felt entitled to bring with her to her new office:

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is bringing 10 staffers of hers over to the State Department, who will report to her in her capacity as special envoy for The Shield of the Americas – Western Hemisphere, an administration official told POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman. The DHS staffers moving departments are Joe Guy, Troup Hemenway, Steven Munoz, Giovanna Cinelli, Joseph Mazzara, Josh King, Zach Watson, Octavian Miller, Jayden Bies and Josh Sedore [Eli Okun and Makayla Gray, “Trump’s Dire Strait,” Politico, 2026.03.20].

But the professionals at the State Department don’t like Noem’s toadies any more than they like the queen lizard. State has already booted four of her crew:

At least four officials who followed Noem from DHS to the brand-new security coalition have been placed on administrative leave, unnamed sources told the Mail Thursday. The outbound officials include former deputy chief of staff Troup Hemenway, ex-deputy general counsel Giovanna Cinelli, and junior staffers Josh King and Octavian Miller [Houghtailing, 2026.04.10].

The New York Post says State purged Hemenway, King, and Miller because of their ties to Noem’s close chum Corey Lewandowski:

“They didn’t want any people that would be tentacles for Lewandowski,” the source said.

Lewandowski was an unpaid special government employee at DHS, but would introduce himself as Noem’s chief of staff and reportedly wielded major power within the agency.

The source said officials at Foggy Bottom weren’t keen to revisit the drama that plagued the married former South Dakota governor’s tenure at DHS, including her alleged years-long dalliance with Lewandowski and her controversial $220 million TV ads [Geoff Earle and Anna Young, “Kristi Noem’s Loyal Staffers Axed After Following Scandal-Ridden Boss to New Gig: ‘You’re Obviously Not Welcome’,” New York Post, updated 2026.04.10].

John “Troup” Calhoun Hemenway is a 20-something Project 2025 minion. Octavian Miller is another young Heritage Foundation Stepford child who coordinated Noem’s DHS briefing book. Giovanna Cinelli hosted a fundraiser for Noem in McLean, Virginia in December 2021. Joshua King is a “Disciple of Jesus” and 2024 campaign organizer for Trump in Pennsylvania who peddled the fallacy that the 2020 election was rigged. None of the four leap out as experienced security experts or diplomats. But neither does Kristi Noem, who may soon make America greater by following them to the unemployment line.