John,

Two years ago, this was the headline we saw across the nation:

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem sent the South Dakota National Guard to Texas’s Mexico border. At the time, Noem did not give any details about the deployment – not how long they would be there, what it would cost, or exactly what they would be doing.

But what was clear was that a billionaire from Tennessee would be footing the bill.

As the Washington Post reported at the time, “Privately funding a military mission is an affront to civilian oversight of the armed forces, said military and oversight experts, describing the move — a Republican governor sending troops to a Republican-led state, paid for by a Republican donor — as likely unprecedented and unethical.”

CREW being CREW, we had to get to the bottom of the story.

We filed Freedom of Information Act requests and then sued the US Army and South Dakota National Guard to ensure we got the records in a timely manner. The lawsuit was successful, and last year we got records showing the troops did not have much to do once they got to the border. Now, we’ve obtained new records that provide a behind-the-scenes look at how Noem’s and SDNG staff communicated about the donation amid mounting controversy.

Now, here’s more detail about what we found:

Then-SDNG Adjutant General Jeffrey Marlette was involved in framing Noem’s language around the deployment and the donation.

Upon reviewing Noem’s press release about the deployment, he replied, “I think the statement ‘The deployment will be paid for by a private donation’ will start a flurry of inquiries from the media, but it is a true statement.”

The message and an update about the timing of the release was received by Edwin Vanderwolde, SDNG’s director of Joint Staff, who forwarded the thread to an Air Force official who only responded, “Ack.”

Days later, on June 30, 2021, Marlette sent an email to Noem’s team providing bullets on how to defend the donation in a script for Noem following the announcement. The bullets included, “Private donations to the State of SD are not illegal or uncommon,” and “this is a National Security risk to our country and ul [sic] to our State.” He said his approach “defeats the media’s misguided assumptions that this is political, illegal, or not within [Noem’s] powers.”

The same morning, members of the state government were alerted by Kristi Turman, the director of South Dakota Department of Public Safety’s Office of Emergency Services, that the Department of Defense and the National Guard Bureau were “discussing the legality of whether or not National Guard troops can be paid for with a private donation.”

The message was sent with an “Importance: High” note to Craig Price and Dan Lusk, the South Dakota Department of Public Safety’s secretary and deputy secretary, respectively, at the time. Lusk replied that they needed to verify that the private donation goes to the state’s emergency and disaster fund instead of directly to salaries for the National Guard members, and asked the director of the department’s grant oversight division to “do some more leg work” on the matter.

In a separate thread, South Dakota Sen. John Thune’s policy advisor Jon Abdnor said that the deployment being funded by the private donation “stood out” in questions following the announcement, and asked if there would be more information provided about the use of the money. There ultimately wasn’t, apart from Marlette saying that the SDNG expected to spend over $1.3 million by the middle of September, with the state’s emergency and disaster fund covering what the donation would not. Johnson’s donation reportedly flowed through this emergency fund to deploy the soldiers to Texas.

Thank you,

Team CREW