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Last week, the investigative reporting juggernaut ProPublica published a report on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem engaging in what one source told reporters was “playing hide the salami with the taxpayer.”
The report, Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts, is an absolute must-read. According to ProPublica, Secretary Noem facilitated an anti-immigrant ad campaign that cost taxpayers over $200 million, and she made sure that a firm close to her and her closest aides, Strategy Group, got the gigantic contract without a competitive bidding process. The firm was not listed on required disclosure forms. At least one ad features Noem saying, “You cross the border illegally, we’ll find you.”
Because the news cycle is relentless and it can be difficult to keep in mind all the horrifying things the Trump Administration has done this year, a reminder that Secretary Noem has been leading the Department of Homeland Security as the federal government has sent at least 252 people, without due process, to El Salvador, where they were held in a prison notorious for its brutality. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father of three children, says he endured torture, including beatings and threats, at the CECOT mega-prison. The Trump Administration is now trying to deport him to Liberia. Meanwhile, DHS has detained a record number of people, including thousands of parents and caregivers of children. So, if you need a refresher, that sums up Noem.
According to ProPublica: “Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration. Her agency invoked a ‘national emergency’ at the border as it rewarded contracts for the campaign, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process designed to prevent waste and corruption.”
This isn’t the first time Noem has been caught up in alleged ethics violations. She has failed to disclose payment in the past. In July, End Citizens United filed an ethics complaint against Noem with the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics that called for an investigation into whether Noem violated campaign finance laws when she accepted a $80,000 personal payment from a dark money group while she was governor.
Key points from the ProPublica report:
Strategy Group, which DHS awarded the enormous contract, has close ties to Noem: “No firm has closer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Strategy Group. It played a central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her top adviser at DHS, has worked extensively with the firm. And the company’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin.”
Experts called Noem’s dealings with the ad firm corrupt: “‘It’s corrupt, is the word,’ said Charles Tiefer, a leading authority on federal contract law and former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the Strategy Group’s role should prompt investigations by both the DHS inspector general and the House Oversight Committee.”
This is a pattern: “This is not the first time that the Strategy Group has gotten public money through a Noem contract. As governor of South Dakota in 2023, her administration set off a scandal by hiring the Ohio-based company to do a different ad campaign, paying it $8.5 million in state funds. While the state said the contract was done by the book, a former Noem administration official told ProPublica that Noem quietly intervened to ensure the Strategy Group got the deal.”
Noem herself has wide discretion over an increasing amount of taxpayer money: “The revelations come as the amount of money at Noem’s disposal has skyrocketed. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill granted DHS more than $150 billion, and Noem has given herself an unusual degree of control over how that money is spent. This summer, she began requiring that she personally approve any payment over $100,000.”
The whole report paints a picture of how deep corruption runs in this Administration. But, as LeVar Burton used to say, you don’t have to take my word for it. Give the whole report a read.
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