On Oct. 2, the second day of the federal government shutdown, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a tv advert. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the digital camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our legal guidelines, we’ll punish you.”
Noem has hailed the greater than $200 million, taxpayer-funded advert marketing campaign as an important instrument to stem unlawful immigration. Her company invoked the “nationwide emergency” on the border because it awarded contracts for the marketing campaign, bypassing the traditional aggressive bidding course of designed to stop waste and corruption.
The Division of Homeland Safety has saved no less than one beneficiary of the nine-figure advert deal a secret, data and interviews present: a Republican consulting agency with longstanding private and enterprise ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The corporate operating the Mount Rushmore shoot, referred to as the Technique Group, doesn’t seem on public paperwork concerning the contract. The primary recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware firm, which was created days earlier than the deal was finalized.
No agency has nearer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Technique Group. It performed a central function in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial marketing campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her prime adviser at DHS, has labored extensively with the agency. And the corporate’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin.
The Technique Group’s advert work is the primary identified instance of cash flowing from Noem’s company to companies managed by her allies and associates.
Authorities contracting consultants mentioned the depth of the ties between DHS management and the Technique Group advised main potential violations of ethics guidelines.
“It’s corrupt, is the phrase,” mentioned Charles Tiefer, a number one authority on federal contract legislation and former member of the Fee on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He mentioned that the Technique Group’s function ought to immediate investigations by each the DHS inspector common and the Home Oversight Committee.
“Hiding your folks as subcontractors is like enjoying disguise the salami with the taxpayer,” Tiefer added.
Federal laws forbid conflicts of curiosity in contracting and require that the method be carried out “with full impartiality and with preferential remedy for none.”
“It’s worthy of an investigation to ferret out how these choices have been made, and whether or not they have been made legally and with out bias,” mentioned Scott Amey, a contracting knowledgeable and common counsel on the watchdog group Challenge on Authorities Oversight.
The revelations come because the sum of money at Noem’s disposal has skyrocketed. The so-called Massive Stunning Invoice granted DHS greater than $150 billion, and Noem has given herself an uncommon diploma of management over how that cash is spent. This summer time, she started requiring that she personally approve any fee over $100,000.
Requested concerning the Technique Group’s work for DHS, McLaughlin, the company spokesperson, mentioned in an interview, “We don’t have visibility into why they have been chosen.”
“I don’t know who they’re a subcontractor with, however I don’t work with them as a result of I’ve a battle of curiosity and I totally recused myself,” she mentioned. “My marriage is one factor and work is one other. I don’t mix them.” Her husband, Technique Group CEO Ben Yoho, didn’t reply to questions.
In a written assertion, DHS mentioned, “DHS has no involvement with the collection of subcontractors.” They added that the Technique Group doesn’t have a direct contract with the company, saying “DHS can not and doesn’t decide, management, or weigh in on who contractors rent.”
Contracting consultants mentioned that companies can and do typically require that subcontractors be accredited by officers. It’s not clear how a lot the Technique Group has been paid.
This isn’t the primary time that the Technique Group has gotten public cash by a Noem contract. As governor of South Dakota in 2023, her administration set off a scandal by hiring the Ohio-based firm to do a distinct advert marketing campaign, paying it $8.5 million in state funds. Whereas the state mentioned the contract was carried out by the guide, a former Noem administration official informed ProPublica that Noem quietly intervened to make sure the Technique Group received the deal. ProPublica granted some individuals anonymity to debate the offers due to their sensitivity.
The agency additionally paid as much as $25,000 to one in all Noem’s closest advisers in South Dakota, beforehand unreported data present. (The adviser, 28-year-old Madison Sheahan, now serves at DHS because the second-in-command of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sheahan didn’t reply to questions on why she was paid.)
The DHS advert that the corporate filmed at Mount Rushmore has aired throughout “Fox & Buddies” in current days. Executives from the Technique Group traveled to the shoot and employed subcontractors to fill out the movie crew, in keeping with data and an individual concerned within the marketing campaign. The advert’s aesthetic sits someplace between a political marketing campaign advert and a Jeep industrial as Noem tells would-be immigrants to “come right here the correct manner.”
“From the cowboys who tamed the West to the titans who constructed our cities,” Noem says, as photographs of Trump Tower in Chicago and Trump elevating his fist after the assassination try final yr flash on the display, “America has all the time rewarded imaginative and prescient and grit.” Noem continues: “You cross the border illegally, we’ll discover you.”
Watch the DHS Advert Filmed at Mount Rushmore
The advert is the most recent in a marketing campaign that Noem debuted in February, only a few weeks after she took cost of DHS. “Any delay in offering these vital communications to the general public will enhance the unfold of misinformation, particularly misinformation by smugglers,” the company wrote, explaining why it was skipping the aggressive bidding course of usually required for presidency contracts. The preliminary advertisements featured Noem thanking Trump for securing the border.
The contracts complete $220 million to date, main the DHS advert price range to triple in the newest fiscal yr, in keeping with Bloomberg. The lion’s share of advert contracts is often used to purchase TV airtime or spots on social media. Promoting companies generate profits by taking an often-hefty fee. Federal data present the contracts have gone to 2 companies. One is a Republican advert firm in Louisiana referred to as Folks Who Assume, which has been awarded $77 million.
However the majority of the cash — $143 million — has gone to a mysterious LLC in Delaware. The corporate was created simply days earlier than it was awarded the deal.
Little is thought concerning the Delaware firm, which known as Secure America Media and lists its tackle because the Virginia dwelling of a veteran Republican operative, Michael McElwain. McElwain has lengthy had his personal promoting firm (separate from the Delaware one), however there’s little proof that agency may deal with a nine-figure federal contract by itself: It reported simply 5 workers when it obtained COVID-19 aid cash a couple of years in the past.
How, the place and to whom Secure America Media doled out the $143 million is unknown. Any subcontractors employed to do work on the DHS advertisements should not disclosed in federal contracting databases.
The workplace funding the advert contracts is listed because the DHS Workplace of Public Affairs, which is run by McLaughlin, contract data present. McLaughlin married Yoho, the Technique Group CEO, earlier this yr.
In its assertion, DHS mentioned the company does its contracting “by the guide” and the method is run by profession officers. “It is rather unhappy that Professional Publica would search to defame these public servants,” DHS added.
Requested about why the company selected Secure America Media, DHS mentioned, “The outcomes converse for themselves: essentially the most safe border in American historical past and over 2 million unlawful aliens exiting the US.” McElwain and Folks Who Assume didn’t reply to questions.
Yoho was nonetheless in school when he first served as marketing campaign supervisor for a U.S. congressman. Now, at 38 years previous, he’s a nationwide participant within the cutthroat business of political promoting. Federal election data present tens of tens of millions in funds to his agency in the course of the 2024 election cycle, coming from dozens of Republican congressional candidates. And Noem has proved a very profitable shopper.
Lewandowski introduced Yoho into Noem’s inside circle again in South Dakota, in keeping with two individuals acquainted with the matter, placing the younger marketing consultant answerable for the advert aspect of her 2022 gubernatorial reelection marketing campaign. Noem had a greater than $5 million promoting price range for the race, data present. After she gained in a landslide, Yoho, who has referred to as Noem a good friend, got here to South Dakota to attend her inauguration ceremony. He sat off to the aspect of the stage, subsequent to Lewandowski. (Lewandowski didn’t reply to a request for remark.)
By then, Yoho’s subsequent large challenge with Noem was already within the works. In late 2022, Noem was quietly making ready to launch one other sprawling advert marketing campaign — solely this time, the cash would come from state coffers. The acknowledged purpose was to encourage employees to maneuver to South Dakota. The upcoming contract alternative wasn’t public but, however Yoho was already concerned in planning the marketing campaign, in keeping with data first reported by Sioux Falls Reside.
Then on Jan. 12, 2023, Yoho’s firm registered to do enterprise in South Dakota beneath the identify Go West Media. The following day, the contract alternative went stay.
Seven firms submitted proposals for the challenge. Then the strain from above set in, in keeping with a former Noem administration official concerned within the course of.
The previous official mentioned a prime Noem aide informed them the governor could be indignant if Yoho’s firm didn’t win the contract. “He was very direct: ‘She desires to do it,’” they mentioned. Contemporaneous textual content messages reviewed by ProPublica corroborate that senior Noem administration officers pushed for Yoho to get the contract. Ultimately, he did. (In its assertion, DHS denied that Noem influenced the method.)
Noem starred in Yoho’s advertisements herself, dressing up as a dentist, a plumber and a state trooper as she touted her state’s rising economic system. Precisely how a lot Yoho and the Technique Group made off the $8.5 million deal is unclear. A few of the cash was used to buy spots on Fox Information, together with one throughout a Republican presidential debate. A few of the cash seems to have gone again to South Dakota — into the checking account of one other of Noem’s prime advisers.
Sheahan, now the second-in-command at ICE, was paid as much as $25,000 by Go West in 2023 for “consulting,” in keeping with a monetary disclosure doc Sheahan later filed. On the time, Sheahan was serving as each the operations director for Noem as governor and the political director for Noem’s marketing campaign work, in keeping with a replica of her 2023 resume obtained by ProPublica. Her tasks included coordinating “each day logistics and operations” for Noem and her group, the resume mentioned. She additionally managed the “relationship with excessive stage donors” to American Resolve, Noem’s community of out of doors political teams.
As his agency obtained tens of millions from the South Dakota state authorities, Yoho individually continued to work for Noem in different capacities. He labored beneath Lewandowski on the publicity marketing campaign for Noem’s 2024 memoir, in keeping with an individual acquainted with the matter. (The guide turned well-known for together with an anecdote about Noem taking pictures her canine.)
The Technique Group additionally obtained a stream of funds for social media consulting and media manufacturing work over the previous few years from Noem’s American Resolve PAC. Federal election data present the PAC made its final fee to Yoho’s firm this February, a pair weeks after Noem took her submit as the top of DHS.
