DHS IG Launched Probe Into $220M Contract for Noem Ads

A source in the DHS community accused Noem of “retaliating” by not allowing the IG to “work real cases” because she and her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, could be implicated in the watchdog probe of the ad contracts.

The $220 million ad contract sparked bipartisan Senate scrutiny during a Judiciary Committee hearing last week before Trump fired Noem, who will leave her role by March 31. Trump, who has since openly criticized the ad campaign’s price tag, tapped Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace Noem.

Republican Sens. John Kennedy and Thom Tillis joined Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, in questioning Noem about the ad campaign contract and whether any DHS employee had financially benefited from it. The senators repeatedly pressed Noem on why it was awarded to three companies, including a subcontractor run by Ben Yoho, the husband of former DHS press secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

Welch and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who is the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, followed up late last week with letters to the three companies – Safe America Media, People Who Think, and Yoho’s Strategy Group. Safe America Media was incorporated in Delaware less than two weeks before receiving a $143 million contract. People Who Think was awarded a $77 million contract.

As the lead contractors, Safe America Media and People Who Think stood to reap millions in profit for the ad placements in media companies across the United States. Safe America Media is run by veteran GOP operative Michael McElwain, who through his DMM Media company is a well-known ad buyer for Senate Republican campaign committees.

Ad maker Pat McCarthy, also of DMM Media, is best known for producing Trump’s viral 2024 “They/Them” ad targeting then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ support for transgender surgeries for California prisoners. MAGA Inc., the super PAC that spent the most money supporting Trump’s 2024 campaign, hammered Harris in the ads, echoing a Trump campaign ad almost exactly, saying, “Crazy liberal Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

People Who Think is associated with Jay Connaughton, who worked with Lewandowski on Jeff Landry’s Louisiana gubernatorial campaign.

A DHS spokesperson denied any retaliation against the Inspector General’s office.

“It is completely false that there has been any kind of retaliation against the IG and his staff,” an unidentified DHS spokesperson told RealClearPolitics in an emailed statement.

A spokesman for the DHS IG’s office said it could not confirm nor deny the existence of any particular investigation. On its website, however, the IG lists as one of its ongoing projects “an audit of grants and contracts awarded by any means other than full and open competition during fiscal year 2025,” which could perceivably include information about the process in which DHS officials awarded the contracts for the $220 million Noem ad campaign.

That audit, which is congressionally mandated to take place on a yearly basis and apply oversight to all DHS grants and contracts, is currently paused because the ongoing DHS government shutdown has forced the watchdog agency to furlough employees assigned to it. One source, however, said the DHS IG investigation into the Noem ad campaign in question was separate from this audit.

Inspector General Joseph Cuffari in a letter to Congress sent last week accused DHS leadership of having “systematically obstructed” his work, including on a criminal investigation and another into the Secret Service’s failures before and after the 2024 assassination attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Cuffari claimed that DHS leadership had blocked his team’s access to a compartmentalized intelligence program related to the Secret Service’s mishandling of the threats against Trump, even though a separate intelligence agency had approved his access.

Preventing the access significantly “stymied” his investigation into the USSS’ failures, Cuffari wrote to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committees.

“This is particularly troubling given the other reported attempts on President Trump’s life coupled with the present worldwide conflict,” Cuffari stressed, asking the lawmakers for their help in resolving these problems.

In addition, Cuffari, whom Trump appointed during his first term, said leaders at Immigrations and Custom Enforcement late last year revoked his team’s prior years-long access to key enforcement databases, and that Customs and Border Patrol has refused to grant access to a data warehouse containing information about border crossings, among other limitations.

DHS general counsel James Percival II wrote a letter to Cuffari in late January arguing that the watchdog had refused to provide “answers to basic questions” that would allow him to address the access complaints. Percival also asked Cuffari to document the scope of his requests, arguing that specific scopes are “even more warranted” as it pertains to classified information systems.

Percival, acting on Noem’s behalf, requested a list of all ongoing DHS IG investigations, which he confirmed in a letter to Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth in early February after the lawmaker expressed concern that the department was considering halting the watchdog’s oversight role.

Duckworth at the time said the DHS Office of Inspector General has received “repeated tacit threats” in the form of a reminder about a provision of the law that allows the secretary to kill ongoing inspector general investigations.

Percival said that DHS was within its legal rights to request a full accounting of investigations the watchdog had undertaken but argued that neither he nor Noem was trying to quash any of the probes.

“Rather, I requested on her behalf a list of all investigations to ensure she can evaluate whether it might ever be appropriate to exercise that power,” the general counsel said in a letter to Duckworth.

Duckworth called Percival’s response an admission that Noem’s office was seeking to “sabotage” the watchdog agency’s independence. 

Cuffari had no choice but to provide the list of ongoing investigations and audits because he was forced to do so under the law, even though no other inspector general in the 48 years since an act of Congress created these watchdogs has been asked to do so.