Senators have accused the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of “running an in-house private jet service” for Trump administration officials and first family members.
On August 13, 2026, a letter was published, signed by Senators Patty Murray, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Chris Murphy, Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, slamming DHS for acquiring 12 new aircraft, including five executive jets.
The letter was addressed to the recently appointed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, demanding an explanation for the acquisitions.
“It has come to our attention that DHS is effectively running an in-house private jet service for Trump administration officials with a slew of new luxury jets and other airplanes it has acquired and begun providing to officials over the last year,” Senators Murray and Murphy wrote. “This includes providing jet services not only for DHS officials like yourself, but also for White House Border Czar Tom Homan, other administration officials, members of the first family, and even the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel.”
The Senators list the aircraft as two Gulfstream 700s, two Gulfstream G650s, a single Boeing 737-8 MAX and seven Boeing 737s. The letter states that DHS already owned two Gulfstream jets to support executive travel when the purchases were made.
According to the letter, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) provided funds for the two Gulfstream 700s when Kristi Noem ran DHS, while OBBBA funds were allocated to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to acquire the additional 10 aircraft.
An investigation by the New York Times claims that DHS spent $464 million on a no-bid contract to buy 10 used aircraft, but the fleet has barely been used.
The Senators’ letter said the jets “were acquired and provided for officials’ use, even though no authorization was ever provided by Congress to buy any airplanes, much less to support executive travel.”
“The American people deserve a full accounting of this gross misuse of their tax dollars, and Congress needs more information to conduct sorely needed oversight and to appropriately craft this coming year’s funding bill for the Department,” the letter read. “The misuse of these funds also merits investigation by DHS’s Inspector General, and we have copied him on this letter to make him aware of our concerns.”
DHS has been requested to provide further information about the aircraft purchases to the Senate Appropriations Committee by August 26, 2026. These details include:
- Contract details for the purchase of each plane
- Contracts for any/all retrofitting and missionization of each plane
- Cost analysis for the operations and maintenance of each plane for the life cycle of the plane
- Flight logs to date, including the names and titles of passengers, origination, destination, and purpose of travel
- A copy of the lease agreement with the FBI for the G650 jet
- A copy of the loan agreement with DOD for the Boeing 737-8 MAX business jet
- The legal justifications for the purchase, operation and maintenance, as well as planned uses, of these aircraft.
- The Senators’ letter ended stating that they hope the department will “sell off these unnecessary luxury jets and airplanes” and “return the funding to American taxpayers”.