Trump administration: Shaheen's husband got preferential treatment
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says Sen. Jeanne Shaheen interceded to keep her husband, Bill, from being put on a terrorist watch list because he had taken three flights with an unnamed suspected terrorist.
In an unusual statement released to the press, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said this was only one of many examples of politicization of the Transportation Safety Administration's Silent Partners Quiet Skies program that monitors air travel.
Homeland Security (DHS) accused the New Hampshire Democrat of directly lobbying former TSA Administrator David Pekoske to exclude her husband from the list; Bill Shaheen was given a blanket exemption for 18 months.
Meanwhile, Noem charged that TSA, at the Biden administration's urging, had added Tulsi Gabbard, a political opponent and now President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence, to the same list.
'It is clear that this program was used as a political rolodex of the Biden Administration —weaponized against its political foes and to benefit their well-heeled friends,' Noem said in the statement. 'This program should have been about the equal application of security, instead it was corrupted to be about political targeting. The Trump Administration will restore the integrity, privacy, and equal application of the law for all Americans, including aviation screening."
According to a timeline provided by Homeland Security, Bill Shaheen was randomly selected for surveillance for two flights in July 2023 from Boston to Washington and then back again.
DHS officials claim Sen. Shaheen's office made an inquiry to the TSA about her husband being subjected to enhanced screening.
Then Bill Shaheen was flagged a second time as a traveler with this suspected terrorist in October 2023.
After Shaheen's office made a second inquiry, DHS said, the TSA put her husband on the exclusion list.
Shaheen's office has issued a statement denying the senator played any role but said her office did inquire with the TSA after her husband was subjected to inquiries the office called 'extensive, invasive and degrading.'
Sen. Shaheen had been unaware her husband was put on any list or that his name was later exempt from that inquiry, a spokesperson said.
Bill Shaheen told WMUR Wednesday that it was his complaints about these incidents that prompted his removal from the list, not anything his wife did.
'I didn't ask my wife to put me on the (exemption) list. Who put me on the list (to be watched)? I wanted to know that. When I started pushing on that they took me off the list,' Bill Shaheen said.
Bill Shaheen is a Lebanese American who has been politically active in that community.
Shaheen's office had told CBS News that the person Bill Shaheen had been flying with was an attorney associate who was also an Arab American.
klandrigan@unionleader.com
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