At the Center of the ICE Uproar, a Familiar Figure: Corey Lewandowski Now a top aide to Kristi Noem

From Day 1, he was Donald Trump’s pit bull.

Corey Lewandowski was a hard-charging political operative who worked for a group backed by the Koch brothers when Mr. Trump put him in charge of a nascent White House campaign with only a handful of staff members in 2015. Untested at the presidential level, he led with a simple mantra: “Let Trump be Trump.”

With an attack-and-never-apologize style that mirrored his boss’s, Mr. Lewandowski could almost always count on Mr. Trump’s eventual support over the next decade, as he ping-ponged from government to lobbying and back again with several scandals in his wake.

Now back as a top adviser to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, he finds himself at the center of the uproar over the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, where two American citizens have been killed by federal agents in the past month.

Mr. Lewandowski and Ms. Noem met with Mr. Trump on Monday for nearly two hours as the administration faced intense pressure, including from Republicans, to ease up federal immigration agents’ aggressive tactics in Minnesota.

Mr. Trump did not suggest that either Ms. Noem’s or Mr. Lewandowski’s jobs were at risk, according to people briefed on the meeting, but speculation has swirled about their future amid signs of Republican unease with Ms. Noem’s combative, camera-heavy approach to immigration enforcement. Democrats and a few Republicans have called for investigations into the Minnesota operation that could potentially draw in Mr. Lewandowski.

He looms as a significant figure inside the Department of Homeland Security, where he has been serving as a “special government employee” despite questions about whether he has exceeded the limit of 130 days a year for such workers.

Ms. Noem’s decision to empower Mr. Lewandowski has frustrated some in the agency and at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of the homeland security department. One D.H.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said that Mr. Lewandowski was known as someone willing to fire anyone perceived as getting in his way. At times, this official said, he has mused about which officials were stalling certain priorities and whether they should be fired.

A U.S. official said that directions at ICE were coming from Mr. Lewandowski and that nothing got done at the agency without his blessing. At times, this person said, Mr. Lewandowski yelled at ICE leaders as the pressure to meet Mr. Trump’s mass deportation goals increased last year.

Mr. Lewandowski has also been present at pivotal moments for Ms. Noem and the department, including speeches and controversial episodes. He was at the news conference in Los Angeles last year when Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat from California, was forcibly removed and handcuffed after he tried to talk to Ms. Noem.

Mr. Lewandowski did not respond to a text message seeking comment. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment about Mr. Lewandowski, but she pointed to what she called “ICE’s remarkable results.”

That Mr. Lewandowski would again find himself in the center of things was no surprise to Republicans who have watched his cat-with-nine-lives political career.

“Corey has shown that he is the ultimate loyalist,” said Stephanie Grisham, who worked on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and served as White House press secretary during his first term but became an outspoken critic after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. “I’ve never seen him back away or even slightly criticize the president in any way, and that’s pretty much all you have to do.”

Early in Mr. Trump’s first bid, Mr. Lewandowski attracted criticism that he was not up to the task to make the New York businessman’s bare-bones campaign compete with well-funded opponents like former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. After a narrow loss to Mr. Cruz in Iowa, Mr. Lewandowski faced mounting doubts about the campaign’s strategy in New Hampshire — his home state — but Mr. Trump, of course, ended up sweeping to victory there and then won South Carolina and Nevada.