# DHS Daedalus Jet Purchases On the last morning of [[Kristi Noem]]'s tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security, DHS bought five jets from **[[Daedalus Aviation]]**, a Virginia company chaired by **[[William Walters]]**, who had given $10,000 to a Noem-connected political committee in 2024. The *New York Times* broke the story on October 4, 2026. Daedalus had no government contracts before 2025. By the time Noem left, its no-bid fleet contract with DHS had reached about **$464 million for ten aircraft**, most of which were sitting unused. ## The record | Field | Value | |---|---| | Buyer | [[Department of Homeland Security]] (aircraft for [[ICE]] deportation flights and official travel) | | Seller | [[Daedalus Aviation]] (chairman [[William Walters]]) | | Date | Noem's final morning at DHS; [[Markwayne Mullin]] was sworn in as Secretary on March 24, 2026 | | Competition | None. DHS cited "unusual and compelling urgency" to skip competition (see [[Sole Source]]) | | Contract total | about $464M for 10 aircraft (IBTimes; Daily Beast, both citing the NYT) | | Use | As of fall 2026 the 737s were parked at Lake Charles, Louisiana, because DHS had no crews to fly them | ## The five jets | Aircraft | DHS paid | Daedalus paid | Markup | |---|---|---|---| | Boeing 737 MAX 8 converted to a VIP jet (bar, two bedrooms) | **$108M** | under $90M, months earlier | about $18M+ | | Two smaller luxury jets | **$106M** together | $83M | about $23M | | Two older Boeing 737 passenger planes (about 17–20 years old) | **$45M each** | not reported | aviation experts told the *Times* this was well above market value | Daedalus acted as a middleman: it bought aircraft and resold them to the government. ## Who says what - **DHS (under Mullin):** the contract was "made and approved by department leadership before Secretary Mullin was sworn in." - **Noem:** on X she called the *Times* story "factually incorrect" and "libelous," disputed that Walters should be called a "donor," and demanded a retraction. The *Times* stands by its reporting. > [!warning] Reported by one outlet so far > Not yet confirmed by a second source as of 2026-10-09: > - *The New Republic*'s summary of the *Times* says Mullin considered backing out but feared a financial penalty, and that White House chief of staff [[Susie Wiles]] told him not to block the purchases. > - The same summary says Walters's companies received more than $900 million in DHS contracts in total, including a separate firm, Salus Worldwide Solutions, hired to fly Noem on charter jets and to run voluntary-departure outreach. > - IBTimes says the contract grew by $303M on the day Mullin took office. That matches the sum of the five purchases. ## Why it matters The deal has every feature the vault tracks in procurement corruption: a donor with no contracting history, a no-bid award justified by "urgency," a middleman markup, a purchase timed to the official's last hours in office, and an asset nobody uses. The urgency rationale is hard to square with planes that sat on the ground for months. It also shows the money side of the deportation build-out: when deportation is the department's top priority, any purchase labeled for it is easy to justify, and easy for a connected vendor to fill. ## See also - [[Kristi Noem]] · [[William Walters]] · [[Daedalus Aviation]] - [[Markwayne Mullin]] · [[Department of Homeland Security]] · [[ICE]] - [[Sole Source]] · [[Trump Corruption News Log]]