Noem Can’t Explain Why She Hired 8-Day-Old Company for Ad Campaign
The Department of Homeland Security tapped a little-known ad firm to produce Kristi Noem’s multimillion-dollar ad campaign during the government shutdown last year. But when asked to explain her rationale before a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, Noem was practically speechless.
Reading off a DHS notice, Colorado Representative Joe Neguse noted that the department had identified just four companies “out of the hundreds of thousands of companies in the United States” as potential hires for the campaign.
“One of those is this Safe America Media Company. Where is Safe America Media headquartered?” asked Colorado Representative Joe Neguse.
“I don’t know,” Noem replied.
DHS paid Safe America Media $143 million in no-bid contracts between February and August 2025 to produce a slate of anti-immigrant ads for ICE Barbie. Months later, ProPublica reported that it was unlikely Safe America Media, which was formed just eight days before it won the DHS contract, would have been able to handle a nine-figure government contract.
However, subcontractors are not required to be made public in federal contracting databases, effectively allowing the whopping taxpayer sum to vanish in an untraceable dark-money network. Exactly where and to whom Safe America Media dished out its millions is still unclear, though the consulting company behind one of Noem’s late 2025 videos spilled the beans.
The money from Noem’s agency was funneling directly into the pockets of her friends and allies at the Strategy Group, a group with myriad ties to the ex–South Dakota governor, including having once employed her alleged beau (Corey Lewandowski) and a CEO who is married to Noem’s ex-chief DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
Safe America Media, meanwhile, has no website, no experience, and quiet contracts. The only substantial evidence that the company actually exists at all is that it shares an address with a property owned by veteran Republican operative Michael McElwain.
“Is there a problem with this contract?” drawled the secretary.
“You want the American people to believe that this is all above board, that $143 million of taxpayer money just happened to go to this one company that doesn’t have a headquarters, doesn’t have a website, has never done work for the federal government before, and is registered apparently or attached to a residence from a political operative, and of course one of the subcontractors of that contract, as you know, is a political firm that’s tied to, to you back when you were governor of South Dakota?” pressed Neguse. “The reason why I ask these questions is because this is taxpayer money.
“Eventually the facts will become public in this regard.”
Neguse: Where is this company headquartered?
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 4, 2026
Noem: I don’t know.
Neguse: I don’t know either. We can’t find it. We did find an address that’s registered to a political operative. This company that received 143 million dollars was incorporated 8 days before this contract went… pic.twitter.com/wxRi9NJ7Lb