On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”
Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration. Her agency invoked the “national emergency” at the border as it awarded contracts for the campaign, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process designed to prevent waste and corruption.
The Department of Homeland Security has kept at least one beneficiary of the nine-figure ad deal a secret, records and interviews show: a Republican consulting firm with long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The company running the Mount Rushmore shoot, called the Strategy Group, does not appear on public documents about the contract. The main recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware company, which was created days before the deal was finalized.
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First question - does DHS need a 200M ad campaign?
Second question - anyone care that most of that money went to a company that was a created a few days before the awrding of the contract, who is run by the husband of Noem’s spokesperson?
The names in this incident were also embroiled in controversy when Noem was Gov. and demanded these associates get a state ad contract.
And if John Kennedy is also pissed off? That’s actually not a question directed necessarily at you. Just in general. How many gop congressmen who otherwise support the Trump agenda would it take?
The Ads with Kristi Noem were planned and the dollar amount approved. She didn’t go off on her own and have ads shot.
The company used for the ads is reportedly linked to the husband of a top aide Tricia McLaughlin to Noem. McLaughlin’s husband received 125 thousand dollars (from memory) (or, somewhere within that ballpark) Definitely not millions.
Plus, what do you think the Secretary should use to fly? Noem has used a pair of Gulfstream G700 private jets purchased by the U.S. Coast Guard. And leased a 737 Boeing.
they were approved according to her. The issue that the republican members of congress are raising wasn’t whether it was approved (though they were according to her) but whether they were necessary.
Mayors used the old plane. She needed a new plane. Because the other one was aging out. That’s fine. But two were ordered and not one.
