Kristi Noem is on her way out of Homeland Security — but the questions are just beginning.

In a blistering move that raises the stakes for one of the Trump administration’s most visible officials, two senior Democrats have formally referred the outgoing DHS secretary to the Department of Justice for a potential perjury investigation, accusing her of misleading Congress in what they call a “brazen” attempt to dodge accountability.

The referral, sent Monday by Senator Dick Durbin and Representative Jamie Raskin to Attorney General Pam Bondi, paints a picture of a department under scrutiny and a leader, they allege, willing to bend the truth to protect it.

“After months of evading our Committees’ requests to testify,” the lawmakers wrote, Noem finally appeared — only to deliver what they describe as “demonstrably false statements” that undermined congressional oversight.

At the center of the storm is a $220 million advertising campaign — a glossy, controversial effort that featured Noem on horseback in front of Mount Rushmore, a piece of political imagery as deliberate as it was expensive.

Under oath earlier this month, Noem told senators that President Donald Trump was aware of the campaign and that the contract had been awarded through a competitive bidding process.

But that version of events quickly began to fracture.

Trump later said he had no knowledge of the spending. Meanwhile, reports surfaced that the contracts may have gone to a select group of firms with ties to Noem and a close adviser — raising questions not just about transparency, but about how the deal was structured in the first place.

“Even if Secretary Noem was the one telling the truth about the President’s knowledge,” Durbin and Raskin wrote, “she flatly misrepresented that the contract had been subject to a competitive bid.”

The allegations don’t stop there.

The lawmakers also accuse Noem of falsely claiming that DHS consistently follows court orders and maintains high standards in its detention facilities — assertions they say are contradicted by court findings and internal reports.

In one cited example, Immigration and Customs Enforcement was found to have violated hundreds of court orders over a matter of months in Minnesota alone. Meanwhile, mounting reports of unsanitary conditions and rising in-custody deaths have cast a shadow over the agency’s operations nationwide.

Behind the scenes, even DHS’s own watchdog is circling.

The department’s inspector general is reportedly investigating the ad campaign’s contracting process and has previously alleged that DHS leadership has “systematically obstructed” oversight efforts over the past year — a charge that adds another layer of tension to an already volatile situation.

Noem, who has been reassigned to a diplomatic role overseeing the Shield of the Americas initiative, is expected to formally exit DHS by the end of the month. But her departure may do little to quiet the controversy.

The referral to the Justice Department carries no immediate legal consequence — and the lawmakers themselves acknowledged they have “low expectations” that Bondi will pursue the case, citing what they describe as partisan use of the DOJ.

Still, they made one thing clear: time is on their side.

The statute of limitations for perjury and false statements to Congress stretches five years — long enough for the political winds to shift, and for this fight to resurface under a different balance of power.

For now, Noem leaves office under a cloud — not of a single scandal, but of a pattern, her critics say, of evasion, contradiction, and unanswered questions.

And in Washington, those tend to linger long after the job is gone.