Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s $220 million ad spending blitz came under intense scrutiny from both Democrats and Republicans across two days of congressional hearings this week, with the secretary unable to explain how a company connected to her own spokesperson landed a lucrative taxpayer-funded project.
Last year, DHS hired a little-known firm to help produce a campaign that prominently featured Noem herself, including one ad filmed during the government shutdown with the secretary on horseback in front of Mount Rushmore. “Break our laws, we’ll punish you,” Noem says in the ad.
Most of that money — $143 million — went to a company that was created just 11 days before it was awarded the contract. On Thursday, after lawmakers grilled her for answers, President Donald Trump said he did not sign off on the campaign.
In her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Noem said she doesn’t know where the contractor is based, if the company has even done work for the government before DHS hired it, or how the company ended up subcontracting a firm with direct ties to Noem’s office.
“You want the American people to believe that this is all above board?” Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse fired back during Wednesday’s hearing.
Those no-bid contracts were awarded to a mysterious LLC called Safe America Media, which then subcontracted with the Strategy Group, whose CEO Ben Yoho is married to Noem’s now-former assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
McLaughlin left DHS last month.
That company also played a significant role in Noem’s North Dakota gubernatorial campaign in 2022, according to ProPublica, which first reported on the contracts and connections to people close to Noem.
The secretary did not dispute that Safe America Media hired the Strategy Group.
During last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Noem said Trump asked her to craft a “marketing campaign” promoting his anti-immigration agenda.
“He said, ‘I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir. I will thank you for closing the border,’” she said at the time.
Trump told Reuters on Thursday that he did not approve of the $200 million campaign, as reports emerged of the president seeking her replacement.
“I never knew anything about it,” he said.
In front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Republican Senator John Kennedy said it was hard for him to believe that those kinds of deals would have been approved by Trump or the White House Office of Management and Budget.
“It troubles me,” he said. “A fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars in taxpayer money, when we're scratching for every penny, and we’re fighting over recision packages … I just can’t agree with it.”
Noem said the ads were “effective.”
“They were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy shot back.
Democratic Senator Peter Welch, who is calling for a congressional investigation into Noem’s spending, noted that the government’s spending website lists “urgency” as the rationale for the no-bid process and listed the DHS Office of Public Affairs as the funding office — which until last month was run by McLaughlin.
DHS operates a mammoth $108 billion annual budget.
“As an administrator who has fiscal responsibility over a huge budget,” Welch said, “do you realistically think that a company that was created 11 days before they got a $143 million is in a position to execute on [that] contract?”
Over two days of testimony, Noem repeatedly denied her involvement in the contracting process though she admitted she evaluates any contract over $5 million.
She also said she does not have legal authority to look into subcontractors.
“You’re treating the billions of dollars our GOP colleagues gave your department like a personal slush fund,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told Noem on Wednesday.
When pressed for comment about the contract process last year, McLaughlin said DHS does not have “visibility” into what firms are hired as subcontractors.
“I don’t know who they’re a subcontractor with, but I don’t work with them because I have a conflict of interest and I fully recused myself,” she told ProPublica. “My marriage is one thing and work is another. I don’t combine them.”
The Independent has requested comment from the Strategy Group.
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