On October 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to film a television ad. Noem, wearing chaps and a cowboy hat and riding a horse, addressed the camera with a stern message to immigrants: “If you break the law, you will be punished.”
Noem praised the more than $200 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign as an important tool to deter illegal immigration. Her agency invoked a “national emergency” at the border in awarding the campaign contract, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process meant to prevent waste and corruption.
Records and interviews reveal that the Department of Homeland Security kept secret the identity of at least one beneficiary of the nine-figure advertising contract. The beneficiary was a Republican consulting firm with longstanding personal and business ties to Mr. Noem and senior aides at the Department of Homeland Security. The company that operates the Mount Rushmore filming, called Strategy Group, does not appear in public documents related to the contract. The primary beneficiary listed in the contract is a mysterious Delaware company that was formed days before the deal was finalized.
No company has more ties to Noem’s political activities than Strategy Group. It played a central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign. DHS Chief Counsel Corey Lewandowski has worked extensively with the company. And the company’s CEO is married to Tricia McLaughlin, Noem’s chief spokesperson for DHS.
Strategy Group’s advertising work is the first known example of money flowing from Noem’s agency to companies controlled by her allies and friends.
Government contracting experts said the depth of the relationship between DHS leadership and the strategic group suggests possible serious ethical code violations.
“Corrupt is the word,” said Charles Tiefer, a leading expert on federal contract law and a former member of the Wartime Contracts Commission in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said the strategic group’s role should prompt an investigation by both the DHS Inspector General and the House Oversight Committee.
“Hiding friends as subcontractors is like hiding salami from taxpayers,” Tiefer added.
Federal regulations prohibit conflicts of interest in contracts and require that the process be conducted “totally fair and without favoritism to anyone.”
“It’s worth an investigation to find out how these decisions were made and whether they were made legally and without bias,” said Scott Amey, a contract expert and general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight watchdog group.
The revelation comes amid a surge in the amount of money Noem has at her disposal. The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” granted DHS more than $150 billion and gave Noem an unusual level of control over how that money is spent. This summer, she began requiring that payments over $100,000 be personally approved.
Asked about the strategic group’s work on DHS, McLaughlin, the agency spokeswoman, said in an interview: “I don’t know why they were chosen.”
“I don’t know who they subcontract with, but I won’t work with them because there is a conflict of interest and they completely refused,” she said. “My marriage and work are separate. I don’t combine them.” Her husband, Strategy Group CEO Ben Yoho, did not respond to questions.
“My marriage and my job are two different things. I don’t combine them,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS. She is married to Strategy Group CEO Ben Yoho. Tricia McLaughlin via Instagram
“DHS is not involved in the selection of subcontractors,” DHS said in a written statement. They added that Strategic Group does not contract directly with the agency and said, “DHS cannot and does not determine, control, or review who contractors hire.”
Contracting experts said government agencies can and do require subcontractors to obtain regulatory approval. It is not clear how much the strategic group was paid.
This is not the first time Strategic Group has received public funding through the Noem deal. As governor of South Dakota in 2023, her administration sparked a scandal by hiring the Ohio-based company to run another ad campaign, paying it $8.5 million in state funds. Although the state said the contract was done by the book, a former Noem administration official told ProPublica that Noem secretly intervened to ensure the strategic group got the contract. ProPublica granted some people anonymity to discuss the deal due to confidentiality.
The company also paid up to $25,000 to one of Noem’s top advisers in South Dakota, according to previously unreported records. (The adviser, Madison Sheehan, 28, currently serves as deputy commander of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at DHS. Sheehan did not respond to questions about why she received the payment.)
The DHS ad, which the company filmed at Mount Rushmore, aired on “Fox & Friends” in recent days. According to records and campaign officials, executives from Strategic Group went to the filming location and hired subcontractors to supplement the film crew. The aesthetic of the ad is somewhere between a political campaign ad and a Jeep commercial, with Nomu urging would-be immigrants to “come here the right way.”
“From the cowboys who tamed the West to the giants who built our cities, America has always rewarded vision and grit,” Noem said as images of Trump Tower in Chicago and Trump raising his fist after last year’s assassination attempt appeared on the screen. Noem continues: “You’re crossing the border illegally. We’ll find you.”
See the DHS ad shot at Mount Rushmore
Retrieved from ProPublica
The ad is the latest in a campaign that debuted in February, just weeks after Noem became head of DHS. “Delays in providing the public with this critical information will further exacerbate the spread of misinformation, particularly misinformation by smugglers,” the agency wrote, explaining why it skipped the competitive bidding process typically required for government contracts. The original ad featured Nomu thanking President Trump for border security.
According to Bloomberg, the contract to date has totaled $220 million, and DHS’ advertising budget has tripled in the most recent fiscal year. The bulk of advertising deals are typically used to buy TV airtime or spots on social media. Advertising companies often earn their profits by charging high commissions. Federal records show the contract went to two companies. One, a Republican advertising firm in Louisiana called People Who Think, won $77 million.
But the bulk of that money, $143 million, went to a mysterious LLC in Delaware. The company was formed days before the deal closed.
Little is known about the Delaware company, called Safe America Media, whose address is listed as the Virginia home of veteran Republican operative Michael McElwain. Mr. McElwain has long had his own advertising company (separate from the Delaware company), but there is little evidence that it could handle a nine-figure federal contract on its own. When the company received COVID-19 relief money a few years ago, it reported that it had just five employees.
It is unclear how, where, and to whom Safe America Media donated the $143 million. The subcontractors hired to do the work on DHS’ ads are not disclosed in the federal contract database.
Contract records list the office funding the advertising contract as the DHS Office of Public Affairs, run by McLaughlin. Mr. McLaughlin married Mr. Yoho, CEO of Strategic Group, earlier this year.
DHS said in a statement that the agency conducts contracting “by the book” and its processes are run by career employees. “It is extremely sad that ProPublica would seek to smear these public officials,” DHS added.
When asked why the agency chose Safe America Media, DHS said, “The results speak for themselves. We have the most secure border in U.S. history, with more than 2 million illegal aliens leaving the United States.” McElwain and People Who Think did not respond to questions.
Yoho was still a college student when he first served as campaign manager for a U.S. congressman. Now 38, he is a national player in the cutthroat industry of political advertising. Federal election records show tens of millions of dollars were paid to his company by dozens of Republican congressional candidates during the 2024 election cycle. And Noem has proven to be a particularly lucrative customer.
Mr. Lewandowski brought Mr. Yoho into Mr. Noem’s inner circle in South Dakota, making the young consultant the head of advertising for the governor’s 2022 re-election campaign, two people familiar with the matter said. Records show Noem had an advertising budget of more than $5 million for the race. Yoho, who calls Noem a friend, came to South Dakota to attend the inauguration after her landslide victory. He sat on the side of the stage, next to Lewandowski. (Levandowski did not respond to a request for comment.)
Yoho shared a photo of Noem and her husband, Bryon, at Noem’s 2023 inauguration ceremony in South Dakota. Benjamin Yoho, via X
By that time, the next big project with Yoho and Noem was already underway. In late 2022, Noem was secretly preparing to launch another major advertising campaign, only this time the funding would come from the state treasury. The stated goal was to encourage workers to move to South Dakota. Future signing opportunities had not yet been announced, but Yoho was already involved in planning for the campaign, according to records first reported by Sioux Falls Live.
And on January 12, 2023, Mr. Yoho’s company was registered to do business in South Dakota under the name Go West Media. The next day, a contract opportunity moved.
Seven companies submitted proposals for this project. Then the pressure from above began, according to former Noem administration officials involved in the process.
Former officials said Nomu’s aides told him the governor would be angry if Yoho’s company didn’t win the contract. “He was very direct and said, ‘She wants to do it,'” they said. Contemporaneous text messages reviewed by ProPublica confirm that senior Noem administration officials pushed for the Yoho contract. In the end, he did. (DHS denied in a statement that Noem influenced the process.)
Noem herself appeared in Yoho ads, posing as a dentist, a plumber and a state trooper to promote the state’s economic growth. It’s unclear exactly how much profit Yoho and Strategy Group made from the $8.5 million deal. Some of the money was used to buy spots on Fox News, including during the Republican presidential debates. Some of the funds appear to have returned to South Dakota, where they were transferred to the bank account of another top Noem adviser.
Noem wears her costume in an ad produced by South Dakota’s publicly funded Strategy Group. South Dakota Department of Economic Development (via YouTube)
Mr. Sheehan, now deputy commander of ICE, was paid up to $25,000 by Go West for “consulting” in 2023, according to financial disclosure documents he later filed. At the time, Sheahan served as both Noem’s operations manager for governor and political director for Noem’s campaign, according to a copy of her 2023 resume obtained by ProPublica. Her resume said her responsibilities included coordinating the “day-to-day logistics and operations” of Noem and her team. She also managed “high-level donor relationships” to American Resolve, Noem’s network of outside political groups.
Yoho continued to work for Noem in a different capacity as his company received millions of dollars from the South Dakota state government. He worked under Lewandowski on the promotional campaign for Noem’s 2024 memoir, the people said. (The book became famous for including an anecdote about Noem shooting her dog.)
Strategy Group has also received a series of payments for social media consulting and media production work from Noem’s American Resolve PAC over the past several years. Federal election records show PAC’s last payment to Yoho’s company was in February, weeks after Noem took over as DHS secretary.
