Homeland Security Chief Mullin Accused of Ambushing Trump After Hours to Push ICE Nominee, Sources Say

Since PunchUp first reported on Monday that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin cornered President Trump in the Oval Office on Saturday, June 27, to push the nomination of his longtime associate Richard "Lance" Schroyer as ICE director, the fallout inside the White House has grown louder. Multiple sources close to the administration now tell the Daily Beast that senior officials are furious about a pattern of aides exploiting Trump's after-hours schedule to lock in decisions before his top advisers can weigh in.

According to the Daily Beast, Mullin made his pitch while Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was attending her daughter Caroline's wedding. Wiles reportedly learned of Trump's decision to nominate Schroyer the same way the rest of the country did: through a Truth Social post. Immigration adviser Stephen Miller and border czar Tom Homan were also caught off guard, the outlet reported.

A source close to Trump told PunchUp, the Daily Beast's sister Substack, that "certain people, bad actors, have found ways, like calling at night when his senior crew of advisers is not around, to push things through." That source did not name every individual involved but described a broader strategy circulating among officials who want decisions made without the debate Trump normally requires from his team.

The outlet reports this is not an isolated incident. Sources say then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski used the same approach back in January, during intense backlash over the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, in Minneapolis. Noem and Lewandowski reportedly showed up at the White House on the evening of Friday, January 30, after Trump's senior staff had already left for the weekend. Lewandowski has long been rumored to be romantically involved with Noem, which both have denied.

That wasn't their first attempt that week. CNN previously reported that Noem and Lewandowski spent nearly two hours with Trump in the Oval Office the preceding Monday, at Noem's request, according to the Daily Beast's account. The Friday night visit appears to have sealed the outcome: at 9:57 p.m. that same evening, Trump posted on Truth Social defending Noem by name, writing that "the Radical Left Lunatics, Insurrectionists, Agitators, and Thugs, are going after Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, because she is a woman, and has done a really GREAT JOB!"

A source close to the administration described to PunchUp how Trump's decision-making process is supposed to work: "Donald usually forces officials to debate issues in front of his senior aides, before he then tackles a decision based on the totality of information that he has, and his senior aides enable those decisions to happen. Which is why certain people want to catch him on his own. It means he doesn't have as many opinions to go off."

That's the crux of the complaint from inside the building. It's not necessarily that Mullin or Noem did anything illegal. The allegation is that they gamed a structural weakness in how decisions get made at the top of the executive branch. If a president can be persuaded in a five-minute unscheduled conversation without his chief of staff or policy advisers in the room, that's a real vulnerability in any White House, regardless of who's exploiting it.

Cabinet secretaries have legitimate reasons to seek direct access to the president, especially on personnel decisions within their own departments. Homeland Security runs ICE. Mullin arguably has every right to advocate for who leads it, and nothing in the Daily Beast's reporting suggests Schroyer is unqualified or that the nomination violated any law or process. Access to the president isn't inherently corrupt just because it happened on a Saturday.

The Daily Beast reports it contacted the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment. A senior Trump aide confirmed to the outlet that PunchUp's original story was accurate, though a full on-record response from a White House spokeswoman was not included in available reporting.

What's unresolved is whether Wiles or anyone else in Trump's senior circle will move to close off this kind of after-hours access going forward, and whether Schroyer's nomination as ICE director advances through Senate confirmation despite how it originated. Neither the White House nor DHS has announced any procedural changes to how officials can reach the president outside normal business hours.