Kristi Noem failed to disclose $80,000 received while South Dakota governor – report

The US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, failed to disclose $80,000 that she accepted while serving as South Dakota’s governor, according to a report published on Monday.

The investigative news website ProPublica said that tax records from 2023 show Noem was paid the sum by a group listed as American Resolve Policy Fund – but it has never made it on to her public ethics disclosures.

Noem was paid for helping the group – which does not disclose its donors – to fundraise, but the non-profit, a so-called dark money group, went on to run social media attack ads targeting local news outlets that had reported on her alleged misuse of taxpayer funds while serving as governor.

The homeland security secretary, who was assigned a leading role in the immigration crackdown and related deportation efforts that Donald Trump has helmed since returning to the presidency in January, has developed a reputation for an opulent lifestyle.

As South Dakota governor in 2021, on a salary of $130,000, Noem spent $68,000 installing a sauna, chandeliers and rugs in the governor’s mansion, according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

She was sued in March 2024 by the consumer advocacy group Travelers United over a social media video promoting a dental practice named Smile Texas. The lawsuit alleges Noem failed to disclose any potential financial relationship with the Texas dental practice, and the Instagram video was not correctly labelled as an advertisement.

More recently, Noem raised eyebrows when she wore a gold, $50,000 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch while visiting El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), the prison that is holding alleged Tren de Aragua members deported from the US.

Noem also made headlines when her Gucci handbag containing $3,000 in cash was stolen from a Washington DC restaurant.

ProPublica does not assert that Noem broke campaign finance laws in receiving the payment from American Resolve Policy Fund. Lawmakers helping non-profits and other political groups fundraise is not uncommon.

But it is not common practice to be rewarded for doing so.

“There’s no way the governor is supposed to have a private side business that the public doesn’t know about,” Lee Schoenbeck, a longtime Republican attorney and lawmaker, told ProPublica. “It would clearly not be appropriate.”

The Associated Press reported in March that while Noem campaigned for Trump as South Dakota governor, the state picked up some expenses. That included trips to Palm Beach, Florida, from where Trump was then managing his victorious 2024 presidential campaign.

The outlet reported that over her six years as governor, South Dakota covered more than $640,000 in travel-related costs incurred by the governor’s office – including a $7,555 air fare for a six-day trip to Paris to speak at a political event – and costs associated with a bear hunt in Canada with her niece.

Those expenses, reported on by the Dakota Scout, incensed some members of her party. Dennis Daugaard, a former Republican South Dakota governor, said that the costs to taxpayers in service of raising her national profile “offends a lot of people”.

Taffy Howard, a Republican state senator who sparred with Noem over her expenses, said it “seems like an incredible amount of money”.

But the AP cautioned that there was “no indication” that the former governor had broken any laws by having the state foot her security expenses.

“Unfortunately, bad guys tend to make threats against high-profile public officials,” Noem’s then spokesperson, Tim Murtaugh, said. “When it was a political or personal trip, she paid for her own travel out of her political or personal funds.”

The latest questions concerning Noem’s relationship with American Resolve Policy Fund, a group that describes its mission as “fighting to preserve America for the next generation”, reflect how some quarters may view personal brand-building, via product marketing opportunities, as part of a contemporary political career. Trump, for one, has fostered that approach.

In a statement to Politico, Noem’s lawyer, Trevor Stanley, said that the former South Dakota governor “fully complied with the letter and the spirit of the law”.

Stanley said that the US office of government ethics, which processes disclosure forms for federal officials, “analyzed and cleared her financial information in regards to this entity”.

According to ProPublica, Stanley claimed that Noem “fully disclosed all of her income on public documents that are readily available” but did not respond to further questioning.