The Trump administration has rehired a Department of Homeland Security doctor on a $324,000 salary despite an ongoing sexual harassment probe and gun, drug, and alcohol violations, a three-month PunchUp investigation has uncovered.
Dr. Alexander Eastman, 51, was removed as acting chief medical officer for Customs and Border Protection in December 2024 after whistleblower complaints triggered an internal CBP investigation. He admitted to investigators that he had been drinking beer in a bar while carrying his work firearm, and was found to have “improperly” tried to procure narcotics through his job.
Yet last October, he was quietly slipped back into his old post at DHS’s Office of Health Security, as PunchUp, the Daily Beast’s sister investigations Substack, first revealed on Wednesday. Eastman’s lawyer, Dan Schwager, told PunchUp and the Daily Beast that “the majority” of the allegations were “determined to be unfounded or unsubstantiated, and only two minor policy violations were found.”
PunchUp notes the rehiring is a fresh personnel headache for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, 48, whom Trump installed in March after firing Kristi Noem, 54.
Eastman’s pay packet alone makes him an outlier. RealClearInvestigations reported he banked $323,933 in 2024—roughly $78,000 more than Mullin earns running the entire department. He is the only DHS employee ever to clear $300,000, putting him among the top 1 percent of federal workers.
Schwager said the government has long used a “Doctors and Dentists” pay scale to lure surgeons who could earn far more in private practice, citing a 2022 study that found at least 100 such employees making more than $400,000 a year.
Before his return, the surgeon spent almost a year at home on full pay, according to PunchUp. Schwager insists his client was not suspended but placed on “investigative leave” for 10 months, then formally suspended for seven days over the gun and narcotics breaches. His conduct was flagged to Trump in a July letter from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent watchdog for federal workers.
DHS insiders are furious. “Eastman’s inappropriate behavior and actions appear only to have effectively earned him a 10-month paid vacation and return to full duty,” one told PunchUp. Another said: “Eastman seems to get off on getting away with things after being caught, and always pushing the line, on everything.”
CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility found Eastman broke agency policy and Arizona state law by drinking while armed in Tucson in January 2024. Schwager said the episode was an inadvertent “single sip” of beer in a hotel lobby. Stripping a law enforcement officer of his gun over that, he argued, would have been “unprecedented” and “wildly inconsistent with the disciplinary guidelines for such a violation.”
The same report found Eastman wrote and signed an unauthorized narcotics policy to obtain fentanyl lollipops for a 2023 United Nations mission in New York. Schwager said sourcing pharmaceuticals fell within his duties.
The sexual harassment investigation remains open. A Dallas Morning News investigation last April found at least 12 people had filed complaints or described inappropriate behavior, spanning his time at CBP, the University of Texas Southwestern, and the Dallas Police Department, where he served as a reserve officer. Eastman denies all the allegations.
PunchUp reveals Eastman was also dispatched to Minneapolis in January to help with Trump’s Operation Metro Surge deportation drive, which saw protesters Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, killed that month. He worked at the Whipple ICE field office, though Schwager said his duties there were unrelated to detained migrants’ health.
It is a world away from the $1.8 million, five-bedroom home Eastman—a registered Democrat—shares in Dallas with his surgeon wife, Amy, 47, the outlet noted.
Around the time he was sidelined, PunchUp revealed, Eastman posted motivational memes on Facebook—including one featuring Prohibition-era gangster Al Capone, who was brought down not by his worst crimes but by his taxes.
The White House referred questions to DHS. A DHS spokesperson said the agency and CBP were “committed to upholding the highest standards of professional conduct” and that “the overwhelming majority of employees perform their duties with honor and distinction.”
