Senior Department of Homeland Security officials have challenged the White House to launch a “full audit” of the vast advertising contract that led to Kristi Noem being forced from her job.
The sources also alleged deep White House involvement in the ads, contradicting claims by President Donald Trump that he knew nothing about them.
The ads, one of which featured Noem, 54, sitting on horseback close to Mount Rushmore, included footage of DHS immigration operations, migrants crossing the border, drug raids, and Trump raising his fist after his 2024 assassination attempt, with Noem thanking him repeatedly for keeping the country safe. Encouraging migrants in America illegally to self-deport, it warned: “We will find you and we will deport you.”
The $143 million contract for the ads is now at the center of a bitter civil war over who authorized them—and crucially whether Donald Trump gave them the go-ahead. The Daily Beast has been told by sources close to the administration that, contrary to his own public claims of ignorance, Trump did know about the ads, backing up Noem’s own version of events which she gave under oath.
The ads were first shown almost immediately after Noem began her turbulent tenure leading the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and are among the most expensive government ads in history, beaten only by years of COVID PSAs and military recruitment campaigns.
But Noem was fired on Truth Social by Trump after she testified under oath that the president gave the ads the go-ahead, a claim met with skepticism by John Kennedy, the Republican senator who asked her about it. The contract is now being investigated by the DHS Inspector General and by Congress.
However, the Daily Beast has learned that some DHS officials are ready to call BS on Trump’s position that he knew nothing about them, and are calling for an “audit” to reveal the truth.
The massive $143 million contract was one of two totaling $220 million given out by Noem. It was handed, without a bidding competition, to a GOP-linked company in February last year. The company had been incorporated eight days earlier.
The Daily Beast can reveal the curious series of events that led up to the awarding and execution of the contract.
Two sources close to the administration say Trump, 79, “knew about the campaign and wanted it to happen”—directly contradicting the president’s claim, made the day he fired Noem, that “I never knew anything about it.” Noem’s sworn testimony was that Trump authorized the ads.
One senior DHS official told the Beast, “The big question we are all asking is where did that money go? We would be happy to have a full audit on this tomorrow, going into every single penny of the award, including where it went.
“Everyone at DHS is happy to turn over our taxes and bank records—but only the White House can agree to that—will they want to?"
When approached for comment, a spokesperson for the White House told the Beast: “Contracts are awarded by individual agencies. The White House has no involvement in an agency’s contract decisions.”
They did not address whether any money had gone back into the White House, or whether it would agree to the DHS officials’ request to hold an audit. DHS did not respond to a request for comment.
Democratic Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse—who questioned the ad campaign in a fiery head-to-head with Noem at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on March 3—told the Beast: “Corruption and self-dealing has become pervasive and endemic within the Trump administration—and the American people deserve answers.”
The official solicitation for a domestic ad campaign starring Noem, which encouraged migrants in the country illegally to self-deport, was first sent out on Feb. 11, 2025. It was then handed to Safe America Media three days later in a non-competitive process.
Politico reported that a March 3, 2025, DHS memo it had obtained said the contracts were subject to only “limited competition” because of the “urgent and compelling need” to launch the ad campaign.
The DHS ads were the third-most expensive U.S. government marketing campaign of the past decade beaten only by the cumulative spend over years on COVID PSRs, and ongoing military recruiting.
After Trump axed Noem on Mar. 4, the day after her second House humbling in as many days, during which she had told Sen. John Kennedy under oath that Trump had approved spending $220 million on ads in which she was prominently featured, Trump told Reuters: “I never knew anything about it.”
He then told NBC News: “I wasn’t thrilled with it. I spent less money than that to become president. I didn’t know about it.” One of Trump’s aides told Politico a day later, “POTUS did not sign off on a $220 million dollar ad campaign. Absolutely not.”
The Beast has been told by multiple administration insiders that this was untrue.
Trump’s claim also contradicts what Noem herself was reported to have told a Conservative Political Action Conference dinner in February 2025. Noem was reported by Rolling Stone to have said the ad campaign was Trump’s idea and that he specifically told her to thank him in the ads—which she does, repeatedly. “I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border,” Noem said Trump told her, the magazine reported.
Scrutiny over where the money ended up has until now fallen upon Noem, 54, her chief aide and rumored lover Corey Lewandowski, 52, her former spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, 31, and McLaughlin’s husband Ben Yoho, a long-time Noem and Lewandowski ally who owns the company paid to produce the commercials under the $143 million contract.
But the genesis of how the contract came to be awarded to Safe America Media—a firm run by veteran Republican operative Mike McElwain and set up a week before the award was made—go back at least another five months, the Beast has learned, and shine a different light on the episode.
McElwain’s long-time business partner is Pat McCarthy, a little-known GOP operative who has links to some of Donald Trump’s closest aides. He was, the Beast has learned, brought into Trump’s 2024 election campaign, in its closing weeks, after being recommended by veteran Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio. Fabrizio was approached for comment by the Beast.
McCarthy subsequently produced Trump’s viral “They/Them” advertisement targeting then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
A senior DHS source said: “One question that should be asked is why was McCarthy brought so closely into the campaign team at that point in the campaign, when it had many ad buyers it worked with over the previous two years?”
The Beast has been told that months later, in February 2025, the White House demanded to DHS career officials that Safe America Media “be considered” for the $143 million campaign—and that the White House then signed off on them when they were selected. A written record of that top-level authorization exists within the White House and DHS, multiple sources told the Beast.
The solicitation had required previous experience of managing big ad buys, which McElwain and McCarthy had, and when contacted about the solicitation, they offered to take 12 percent of the ad buy, equal to at least $15.2 million, Politico reported.
At 3 percent below the 15 percent industry standard, that “probably seemed like good value” to the DHS officials, one veteran political strategist has told the Beast.
Having been selected to make and buy the ads, Safe America Media hired the Strategy Group, owned by Yoho, 38, as a sub-contractor.
Yoho has written to Democratic Sens. Peter Welch and Richard Blumenthal, who had requested paperwork surrounding the contract from Yoho and McElwain, saying that Strategy Group spent $226,137.17 on five film shoots, which created 45 video ads and five audio commercials. He declined to comment further, pointing the Beast to his letter.
Safe America Media also subcontracted Strategic Media Services (SMS) to place the commercials on TV and radio, though it is not known what cut SMS took, and a spokesperson for Safe America Media declined to say. SMS did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
Where the remainder of the money went, and how much that represented, remains unclear.
A senior political advertising industry source told the Beast: “Did McElwain and McCarthy split it, which they of course had every right to? In which case, well done to them, they are now rich.
“Or were there other people—sub-contractors, or otherwise—who received some of that money, maybe even for doing work on the campaign, which has not been declared publicly, but which should be, given it is taxpayers’ money.
“Either way, the American public should know the full details.”
The White House did not respond to questions about McCarthy’s links to the Trump campaign team. The Daily Beast also contacted McElwain and McCarthy for comment.
Welch’s office told the Beast it has contacted lawyers for Safe America Media but had not yet received answers to its questions and expects to hear back soon. A source close to Safe America Media confirmed the company was planning to respond.
The firm’s lawyer, Joseph Folio, said in a statement to the Beast that the company “submitted a proposal for and was awarded a contract to support DHS’s nationwide public awareness campaign, and committed substantial resources to meet an accelerated timeline on budget.”
He added: “We look forward to providing additional information to address inaccuracies in the public reporting and ensure the record accurately reflects the scope and context of that work.”
It is not clear what Folio had been referring to. He did not respond to a follow-up inquiry.
