Much like President Donald Trump, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is no stranger to taking advantage of the trappings of elected office to make a quick buck or glitz up her surroundings. In 2021, public records showed that the then governor of South Dakota spent almost $70,000 installing a sauna, chandeliers, and luxury decor in the governor’s mansion. Last year, she was sued by a consumer protection group after producing undisclosed advertisements for a Texas dental group. The secretary has more recently sported a $50,000 watch while touring a Salvadoran torture prison. She also had a Gucci purse stuffed with over $3,000 in cash stolen from her at a D.C. restaurant earlier this year.
Noem’s salary as governor was $130,000, but it wasn’t her only source of income while leading South Dakota. According to a Monday report from ProPublica, she received tens of thousands of dollars from a dark money group, possibly in violation of campaign finance laws.
Tax records reviewed by ProPublica show that in 2023, during Noem’s tenure as governor of South Dakota, a group listed as “American Resolve Policy Fund” paid Noem $80,000 that never made it onto her public ethics disclosures.
The payment was made to an LLC in Delaware under Noem’s name. According to the documents reviewed by ProPublica, the $80,000 deposit from American Resolve came only four minutes after the LLC was officially registered. Officially, Noem was paid for helping the group — which does not disclose its donors — fundraise. The group would go on to run social media attack ads targeting local news outlets reporting on Noem’s alleged misuse of taxpayer funds during her time as governor.
While lawmakers helping nonprofits and other political groups fundraise is not unusual, it is not a common practice for them to be rewarded with a five figure deposit to their personal corporate account. “There’s no way the governor is supposed to have a private side business that the public doesn’t know about,” Lee Schoenbeck, a long-time Republican attorney and lawmaker, told ProPublica. “It would clearly not be appropriate.”
The findings relate to a larger pattern in the manner in which Noem — and the Trump administration as a whole — treat public funds. The Associated Press found that she racked up over $150,000 in personal and national campaign travel expenses that were ultimately footed by the state, including as she campaigned for Trump in 2024 (and raised her national profile in the process). The same report calculated that the governor’s office spent a staggering total of $640,000 in travel-related costs during Noem’s six-year tenure, including $7,555 on plane tickets to Paris and hunting trips to Canada.
Noem has ascended to a prominent position in an administration that is quickly becoming the most corrupt in American history. The president’s family is raking in cash across a stuffed portfolio of money-grubbing schemes centered around access to the presidency, and while essentially offering the wealthy access to the White House. Birds of a feather flock together, and Noem has made herself at home in the nest.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
