The corporate is run by the husband of Noem’s chief DHS spokesperson and has private and enterprise ties to Noem and her aides. DHS invoked the “emergency” on the border to skirt aggressive bidding guidelines for the taxpayer-funded marketing campaign.
By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Mierjeski, for ProPublica
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 digicam with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”
Noem has hailed the greater than $200 million, taxpayer-funded advert marketing campaign as a vital device to stem unlawful immigration. Her company invoked the “national emergency” on the border because it awarded contracts for the marketing campaign, bypassing the traditional aggressive bidding course of designed to forestall waste and corruption.
The Division of Homeland Safety has stored at the least one beneficiary of the nine-figure advert deal a secret, information and interviews present: a Republican consulting agency with long-standing private and enterprise ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The corporate working the Mount Rushmore shoot, known as the Technique Group, doesn’t seem on public paperwork concerning the contract. The principle recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware firm, which was created days earlier than the deal was finalized.
Kristi Noem is acknowledged as President Donald Trump speaks throughout an occasion within the Rose Backyard on the White Home on April 2.
No agency has nearer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Technique Group. It performed a central position in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial marketing campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her high 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 buddies.
Authorities contracting specialists stated the depth of the ties between DHS management and the Technique Group instructed main potential violations of ethics guidelines.
“It’s corrupt, is the word,” stated Charles Tiefer, a number one authority on federal contract legislation and former member of the Fee on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He stated that the Technique Group’s position ought to immediate investigations by each the DHS inspector common and the Home Oversight Committee.
“Hiding your friends as subcontractors is like playing hide the salami with the taxpayer,” Tiefer added.
Federal rules forbid conflicts of curiosity in contracting and require that the method be carried out “with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none.”
“It’s worthy of an investigation to ferret out how these decisions were made, and whether they were made legally and without bias,” stated Scott Amey, a contracting skilled and common counsel on the watchdog group Venture on Authorities Oversight.
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The revelations come because the amount of cash at Noem’s disposal has skyrocketed. The so-called Large 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 cost over $100,000.
Requested concerning the Technique Group’s work for DHS, McLaughlin, the company spokesperson, stated in an interview, “We don’t have visibility into why they were chosen.”
“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 stated. “My marriage is one thing and work is another. I don’t combine them.” Her husband, Technique Group CEO Ben Yoho, didn’t reply to questions.
In a written assertion, DHS stated, “DHS has no involvement with the selection of subcontractors.” They added that the Technique Group doesn’t have a direct contract with the company, saying “DHS cannot and does not determine, control, or weigh in on who contractors hire.”
“My marriage is one thing and work is another. I don’t combine them,” stated DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, who’s married to Technique Group CEO Ben Yoho
Contracting specialists stated that businesses can and do typically require that subcontractors be permitted 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 unique advert marketing campaign, paying it $8.5 million in state funds. Whereas the state stated the contract was carried out by the guide, a former Noem administration official instructed ProPublica that Noem quietly intervened to make sure the Technique Group bought 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 information 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 & Friends” in latest days. Executives from the Technique Group traveled to the shoot and employed subcontractors to fill out the movie crew, in line with information and an individual concerned within the marketing campaign. The advert’s aesthetic sits someplace between a political marketing campaign advert and a Jeep business as Noem tells would-be immigrants to “come here the right way.”
“From the cowboys who tamed the West to the titans who built our cities,” Noem says, as photographs of Trump Tower in Chicago and Trump elevating his fist after the assassination try final 12 months flash on the display screen, “America has always rewarded vision and grit.” Noem continues: “You cross the border illegally, we’ll find you.”
Watch the DHS Advert Filmed at Mount Rushmore
Video obtained by ProPublica
The advert is the most recent in a marketing campaign that Noem debuted in February, just some weeks after she took cost of DHS. “Any delay in providing these critical communications to the public will increase the spread of misinformation, especially 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 whole $220 million to this point, main the DHS advert price range to triple in the newest fiscal 12 months, in line with Bloomberg. The lion’s share of advert contracts is often used to purchase TV airtime or spots on social media. Promoting companies earn a living by taking an often-hefty fee. Federal information present the contracts have gone to 2 companies. One is a Republican advert firm in Louisiana known as Individuals Who Suppose, 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 understood concerning the Delaware firm, which is named Protected America Media and lists its deal with 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 might deal with a nine-figure federal contract by itself: It reported simply 5 workers when it obtained COVID-19 aid cash just a few years in the past.
How, the place and to whom Protected 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 information present. McLaughlin married Yoho, the Technique Group CEO, earlier this 12 months.
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In its assertion, DHS stated the company does its contracting “by the book” and the method is run by profession officers. “It is very sad that Pro Publica would seek to defame these public servants,” DHS added.
Requested about why the company selected Protected America Media, DHS stated, “The results speak for themselves: the most secure border in American history and over 2 million illegal aliens exiting the United States.” McElwain and Individuals Who Suppose 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 information present tens of hundreds of thousands in funds to his agency through the 2024 election cycle, coming from dozens of Republican congressional candidates. And Noem has proved a very profitable consumer.
Lewandowski introduced Yoho into Noem’s internal circle again in South Dakota, in line with two individuals aware of the matter, placing the younger advisor accountable for the advert aspect of her 2022 gubernatorial reelection marketing campaign. Noem had a greater than $5 million promoting price range for the race, information present. After she received in a landslide, Yoho, who has known as Noem a buddy, 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.)
Yoho shared a photograph of himself with Noem and her husband, Bryon, at Noem’s 2023 inauguration in South Dakota.
By then, Yoho’s subsequent massive challenge with Noem was already within the works. In late 2022, Noem was quietly getting ready to launch one other sprawling advert marketing campaign — solely this time, the cash would come from state coffers. The said objective was to encourage staff to maneuver to South Dakota. The upcoming contract alternative wasn’t public but, however Yoho was already concerned in planning the marketing campaign, in line with information first reported by Sioux Falls Dwell.
Then on Jan. 12, 2023, Yoho’s firm registered to do enterprise in South Dakota below the title Go West Media. The subsequent day, the contract alternative went reside.
Seven firms submitted proposals for the challenge. Then the strain from above set in, in line with a former Noem administration official concerned within the course of.
The previous official stated a high Noem aide instructed them the governor can be offended if Yoho’s firm didn’t win the contract. “He was very direct: ‘She wants to do it,’” they stated. 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.)
Sheahan, now the second-in-command at ICE, was paid as much as $25,000 by Go West in 2023 for “consulting,” in line 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 line with a duplicate of her 2023 resume obtained by ProPublica. Her tasks included coordinating “daily logistics and operations” for Noem and her workforce, the resume stated. She additionally managed the “relationship with high level donors” to American Resolve, Noem’s community of out of doors political teams.
As his agency obtained hundreds of thousands from the South Dakota state authorities, Yoho individually continued to work for Noem in different capacities. He labored below Lewandowski on the publicity marketing campaign for Noem’s 2024 memoir, in line with an individual aware of 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 information present the PAC made its final cost to Yoho’s firm this February, a pair weeks after Noem took her put up as the top of DHS.
