{"id":3622,"date":"2026-07-16T12:38:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationwideinterstatemovers.com\/?p=3622"},"modified":"2026-07-16T12:38:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:38:30","slug":"ice-barbies-scandal-hit-1bn-failure-rocked-by-exodus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationwideinterstatemovers.com\/?p=3622","title":{"rendered":"ICE Barbie\u2019s Scandal-Hit $1BN Failure Rocked by Exodus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A raft of senior employees has quit the scandal-hit firm chosen by Kristi Noem to run Donald Trump\u2019s $1 billion flagship self-deportation scheme\u2014with three of them leaving in the same week.<\/p>\n

Read more Petty Trump Fires Top Prosecutor Minutes After His Appointment<\/a><\/p>\n

The exodus from Salus Worldwide Solutions\u2014founded and run by Trump crony and former State Department surgeon William Walters III\u2014was revealed by PunchUp, the Daily Beast\u2019s new sister investigations Substack outlet, which has been probing the controversial Department of Homeland Security contract for months.<\/p>\n

\n

The departures follow PunchUp\u2019s June 30 revelation that the firm could be stripped of its three-year Department of Homeland Security contract to run Project Homecoming after burning through all its money within a year and delivering poor results.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Three senior employees left Salus, which court documents say employs around 300 people, within days of one another at the end of May, according to PunchUp. Two others had gone in the two months before that.<\/p>\n

The exits come ahead of Salus likely being forced to re-compete for the remainder of the $915 million Project Homecoming contract. Last Friday, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, 48, citing PunchUp and the Daily Beast\u2019s investigation, to demand he \u201ctake immediate action to stop this wasteful and corrupt spending\u201d and \u201ccancel\u201d the deal.<\/p>\n

DHS is facing wide-ranging investigations into how contracts were awarded under Noem, 54, and her chief adviser and rumored lover, Corey Lewandowski, 52. <\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Lewandowski \u201cmay have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts,\u201d and that investigators are weighing a potential criminal referral to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

A Salus source told PunchUp the timing of the staff exits was \u201cinteresting,\u201d and claimed the latest leavers could \u201csee the writing on the wall.\u201d There is no suggestion that the departures were linked to the Lewandowski allegations or those made by Thompson.<\/p>\n

Most notable among those leaving are Ambassador William Todd, 64, the firm\u2019s $450,000-a-year chief strategy officer, and Kyle Cullen, who was CEO of Walters-owned subsidiary Soteria Solutions.<\/p>\n

Todd, an accountant, previously served as deputy undersecretary of management at the State Department under Secretary Mike Pompeo, where he had been Walters\u2019 supervisor. He told PunchUp he had retired to spend more time with his family.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Hits Humiliating New Low in Popularity Poll<\/a><\/p>\n

Company sources said Cullen, a former soldier who served with Walters in the military, left his $400,000-a-year role at Soteria\u2014a Salus subsidiary company\u2014the same week and was planning to move to Wyoming with his wife to raise their family.<\/p>\n

The third notable departure was in-house legal adviser Tom Wilson, PunchUp reported. Walters regularly outsources legal work to David Panzer, a partner at national security-focused law firm Fluet, which was integral in putting together the Project Homecoming contract. Sources said Wilson\u2019s exit and Walters\u2019 growing reliance on Panzer were especially intriguing as the firm\u2019s dealings with DHS face fresh scrutiny.<\/p>\n

A Salus spokesman attacked PunchUp\u2019s sources, saying of those who had left: \u201cWhen you ask them for comment, they will confirm these claims are baseless. We value every member of our team and are grateful for their service in this worthwhile endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Todd later emailed PunchUp to say morale \u201cremains exceptionally high\u201d and that staff were \u201cdeeply proud\u201d of their work. Cullen did not respond. Wilson could not be reached.<\/p>\n

The three exits followed senior management analyst Carlos Vaquerano, another Army veteran, who left in May, and senior HR official Molly Droelle, who departed in early March after nine months, PunchUp reported. They also did not respond to the outlet\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Salus was awarded a total of $1.1 billion in contracts starting last May, despite being founded just two years earlier and having never served as a lead government contractor, following an \u201cunsolicited,\u201d no-competition bid process that DHS\u2019s own lawyers flagged as problematic. The department bailed the firm out in May with a $200 million extension.<\/p>\n

According to NBC News, a Salus representative allegedly said the firm needed to \u201cmake sure we are properly thanking the person who gave it to us\u201d to land a $20 million DHS contract\u2014understood to mean Lewandowski. Both have denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

DHS was asked if the churn of senior staff at Salus raised concerns and if it still had confidence in the company. A spokesperson repeated the same response as to previous Salus inquiries, saying that the department had \u201cnot sunset its contract\u201d with the company, that the Project Homecoming contract had been issued legally, and that it \u201cregularly reviews contracts to identify waste, fraud, and abuse.\u201d It did not address the matter of staffing.<\/p>\n

\n

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at <\/i>PunchUp on Substack<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read more Doctors Torch Pentagon Pete\u2019s \u2018Ridiculous\u2019 Testosterone Plot<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A raft of senior employees has quit the scandal-hit firm chosen by Kristi Noem to run Donald Trump\u2019s $1 billion flagship self-deportation scheme\u2014with three of them leaving in the same week. Read more Petty Trump Fires Top Prosecutor Minutes After His Appointment The exodus from Salus Worldwide Solutions\u2014founded and run by Trump crony and former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nICE Barbie\u2019s Scandal-Hit $1BN Failure Rocked by Exodus - Nationwide Inter State Movers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationwideinterstatemovers.com\/?p=3622\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ICE Barbie\u2019s Scandal-Hit $1BN Failure Rocked by Exodus - Nationwide Inter State Movers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A raft of senior employees has quit the scandal-hit firm chosen by Kristi Noem to run Donald Trump\u2019s $1 billion flagship self-deportation scheme\u2014with three of them leaving in the same week. 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