Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem was ripped by even GOP senators Tuesday over her agency shelling out $220 million in taxpayer funds for TV ads — starring her.
Noem, 54, appeared on Capitol Hill for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing involving oversight of her department, and the whopping cost of the ad campaign targeting illegal migrants quickly took center stage.
“How do you square [cuts to DHS contracts] with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently?” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.
Noem replied, “Sir, the president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries with putting commercials out that if they were in the country illegally, that they needed to leave.”
The incredulous Republican said he couldn’t believe President Trump would have approved of the costly ad strategy.
“I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth. It’s just hard for me to believe,’’ he said.
But Noem indicated she had the president’s approval and insisted that the ads have been effective — as she pleaded with Dem foes to end the government funding lapse of her agency that has raged since Feb. 14.
“They were effective in your name recognition,” Kennedy shot back at the secretary.
“It puts the president in a terribly awkward spot,’’ he said of her tactic.
Democratic Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) also zeroed in on $143 million of the DHS $220 million expenditure that they alleged was contracted out to Safe America Media.
They latched onto Safe America’s subcontract with the Strategy Group, which is run by Ben Yoho, who is the husband of former DHS rep Tricia McLaughlin.
McLaughlin later underscored that “my husband doesn’t own Safe America and is not apart of it. He nor his company have ever had a contract with DHS.”
Yoho has previously done work for Noem as well as special government employee Corey Lewandowski, a close confidant of the secretary.
“Are you saying it’s just a coincidence?” Schiff asked about DHS’s awarding of the contract.
“It’s just a happy circumstance, a fortuitous event, that $143 million … went to a subcontractor that you worked with extensively as governor in South Dakota or during your campaign — that that is just coincidental?” he asked Noem.
She insisted that DHS abided by its rules for such contracts and denied being involved with the award process. Claims about the Safe America Media deal stem from a ProPublica report in November.
But Welch noted, “Safe America was incorporated 11 days — or seven days by my count — before they got a $143 million contract.
“Now, as an administrator who has fiscal responsibility over a huge budget, do you realistically think that a company that was created 11 days before they got $143 million is in a position to execute on a $143 million contract?” he asked.
Noem largely sat unfazed during the at times contentious hearing before the panel, where Democrats also needled her over various controversies involving her department’s alleged heavy-handed immigration enforcement operations.
She warned that the funding hold has major national security ramifications.
