Married Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has been involved in a years-long affair with longtime Donald Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, multiple sources told The Post Friday.
While no images of the two getting frisky are known to exist, the pair have been tight-lipped about their relationship, with one source recalling them making out in a hotel bar during the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.
“I remember it being very ridiculous and openly open,” said the person, who recalled Noem and Lewandowski getting “handsome” at the Hyatt Regency Orlando bar with between 100 and 200 others around.
“It’s not like 2 in the morning,” the source said. “It’s not like we caught them at a dive bar a few miles away. It is the lobby bar where everyone stays and therefore there are millions of political operatives and journalists and elected officials. I remember I saw it with my own eyes and several other people saw it and it was frankly ridiculous.”
“This is a known, open thing and we’ve all been waiting for it to explode at some point,” the person added.
Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (left) has been involved in a years-long affair with longtime Donald Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski (right), sources told The Post Friday.David Sands/Facebook
The relationship comes a week after Noem, a 51-year-old mother of three, officially endorsed Trump, 77, for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, fueling speculation that the 45th president will choose her as his running mate.
“He 100% hit it off,” said a second person familiar with the relationship between Noem and Lewandowski, which was first reported by DailyMail.com.
The source added that they personally witnessed Noem “sitting on it [Lewandowski’s] lap” and “playing grab-ass” during an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in December 2020.
“The usual stuff drunk people who are having an affair do,” the person said of the interaction.
Another person who saw the couple at Mar-a-Lago on the same occasion confirmed, “I saw him on his lap.”
“I think they’re a couple. They’re on top of each other,” added this source, who had met Lewandowski before, but didn’t know Noem – whom witnesses called otherwise “very beautiful” and “quiet.”
A fourth source told The Post that the affair has been widely known in Republican political circles for “years,” adding that Noem’s husband Bryon is said to have moved out of the governor’s home in Pierre about two years ago.
Bryon Noem runs the eponymous insurance company in Bryant, SD, a few hours’ drive from the state capital. Details of his current living arrangements are unclear.
A fifth person told The Post that he and fellow GOP operatives were “well aware” of the intimate relationship and suggested the story ended up in print thanks to “one of his contenders for VP.”
Noem is married to her husband, Bryon, and has three children. Kristi Noem/Facebook
Both Trump and political pundits have speculated publicly for months about potential running mates, with some names mentioned including Noem, former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) , former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), current GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
Noem himself had been considered a potential 2024 contender but opted out of the race, telling Fox News last month that no Republican could win the nomination as long as Trump was running.
“Why run if you can’t win?” he asked.
On September 8, Noem announced at a rally in Rapid City that he supported Trump, calling him “the fighter our country needs.”
“You made America great again, let’s do it again,” Noem said as he introduced the former president. “I will do everything I can to help him win and save this country.”
Sources told The Post that Noem’s husband is said to have moved out of the governor’s house in Pierre about two years ago. Michael Reynolds/EPA/Shutterstock
Lewandowski, 49, was Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and is widely credited with engineering his victory in the 2016 New Hampshire primary, which boosted the real estate mogul after losing to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the Iowa caucuses.
However, Lewandowski’s star began to fade after he was accused of handling Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields after a Trump press conference in March 2016.
He was charged with one count of simple battery, which was later dropped.
Lewandowski was fired from the Trump campaign three months later, following a reported fight with then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
However, the Massachusetts native remains close to Trump while a private citizen. According to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation, Trump summoned Lewandowski to the Oval Office on June 19, 2017, and instructed him to tell Attorney General Jeff Sessions to make a public statement criticizing the investigation and instructing Mueller to limit the scope of his investigation to foreign interference in the future. in the US election.
Noem welcomes Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before he addresses the South Dakota Republican Party rally in Rapid City, South Dakota, September 8, 2023. REUTERS
Lewandowski arranged a meeting with Sessions, but the AG canceled due to a last-minute conflict. The following month, Trump called Lewandowski again and told him that if Sessions did not agree to meet, Lewandowski should tell Sessions that he was fired. Lewandowski passed the order on to then-White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, who took it and did not send it to Sessions.
The former campaign official has been married since 2005 to wife Allison Hardy, but has been accused of multiple affairs and inappropriate behavior with high-profile women in Trump’s orbit.
In November 2017, pro-Trump singer Joy Villa said Lewandowski had slapped her behind “very hard” at a holiday party. When Villa told him to keep his hands to himself, Lewandowski reportedly told him, “Go ahead, I work in the private sector” – then hit him on the back again.
“It’s really humbling and shocking,” Villa told Politico at the time.
Noem was once considered a potential 2024 contender but chose not to enter the race, saying that no Republican could win the nomination as long as Trump was running. AFP via Getty Images
Lewandowski was also reportedly involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with then-White House communications director Hope Hicks.
In 2021, he was ousted as chairman of the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Action after the wife of the former president’s top donor accused him of inappropriate behavior.
Trashelle Odom told Las Vegas police that Lewandowski asked for her hotel room number and made inappropriate comments about her privates. At one point in their conversation, Odom told Lewandowski he was from a “bad area” in California.
Another source said they themselves witnessed Noem “sitting on it [Lewandowski’s] lap” and “playing grab-ass” during an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2020. Josh Sines/Facebook
“That’s when Lewandowski told me that he was ‘from the bad side of Boston and had been [sic] killing people,’” Odom told police. “I initially believed that he was joking and tried to laugh it off. That’s when Lewandowski went into detail and said something to the effect, ‘When I was 10 years old, I stabbed someone repeatedly, killed him.’ He went on to share that when he was older he ‘stabbed a guy in the back of the head, killed him too.’”
Noem also publicly announced that he was cutting ties with Lewandowski, whose office he called a “volunteer” adviser. However, DailyMail.com reports that the statement is more about show than substance.
“He fired him without actually firing him,” a source told the outlet. “He never left.”
Lewandowski declined to comment on the record for this story.
A spokesman for Noem directed The Post to a statement provided to DailyMail.com, which began: “This is so predictable that you would attack Governor Noem less than a week after he confirmed Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the United States.
“As Governor Noem said during his confirmation speech: ‘Yes, I will be attacked for speaking the truth to all of you tonight. Yes, I expect Joe Biden, these candidates, their political operatives, and the media to perpetuate vile and hateful misinformation in an effort to destroy me and my family because of my opinions. It’s nothing new. I’m used to it, honestly.’”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story quoted a source as saying they saw Noem sitting on Lewandowski’s lap at Mar-a-Lago in March 2020. In fact, the sighting occurred in December 2020.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
