BREAKING🚨 Kristi Noem, on her final day running DHS, handed her donor's firm $108 million in taxpayer money for a luxury jet with marble showers and a manta ray skin table. That same firm had bought the plane just months earlier for under $90 million.

The jet at the center of it is a Boeing 737 Max 8 turned into a private plane, with a stand-up bar, two bedrooms, marble showers and a table covered in manta ray skin. DHS agreed to pay $108 million for it. Daedalus Aviation, the company that sold it, had bought the same plane a few months earlier from a seller who asked less than $90 million.

And that was just one of FIVE planes. DHS also paid Daedalus $106 million for two Gulfstream luxury jets the company had picked up for about $83 million. On top of that it paid $45 million apiece for two 17-year-old Boeing 737 passenger planes. Six aviation experts said those prices were millions over market value. All five were added to the contract on March 24, Noem's last day in the Cabinet and nearly three weeks after Trump announced he was firing her.

Daedalus is chaired by William Walters, who gave $10,000 to American Resolve, a PAC that existed to support Noem. Its sister nonprofit paid her chief adviser, Corey Lewandowski, more than $265,000. The company says Walters didn't know the PAC was connected to Noem. Her photo was on its website. Before this no-bid deal, Daedalus had never held a federal contract.

All told, DHS paid the company about $464 million for 10 planes under Noem, sold to the public as urgently needed for mass deportations. They've been sitting in Lake Charles, Louisiana, for months. An internal document said DHS didn't have the crews to fly them, as Nicholas Nehamas first reported in The New York Times.

Markwayne Mullin, Noem's successor, thought about canceling. He went to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and the deal went through anyway. A White House official says a termination fee in the contract made keeping the planes the responsible choice. Nobody has said how big that fee is, and DHS won't release the contract.

Noem, now a State Department special envoy, declined to answer questions about the prices. Instead she demanded a full retraction, calling the story "libelous" and calling Walters' donor label "materially misleading." She did not dispute a single price.

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Great stop in Tiffin today. Heard from local residents about their appreciation for the gas tax suspension that goes into effect on Sunday. It’s a preview of how we’ll lead this state in January - fast, decisive, and focused on putting $$ back in the pockets of Ohioans. 💪🏼