Rep. Nancy Mace isn't letting Kristi Noem's departure from the Department of Homeland Security close the book.
Appearing Friday on Newsmax TV's "National Report," the South Carolina Republican said she wants a formal investigation, and potentially a subpoena through the House Oversight Committee, into how Noem spent taxpayer money during her tenure at DHS.
The trigger: a $220 million advertising campaign, funded by American taxpayers, that featured Noem prominently in national TV spots. Mace said the ads had "nothing to do with deporting illegal aliens." President Trump removed Noem from her position Thursday.
Mace credited Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana for surfacing the full scope of the spending. Kennedy argued during a Senate hearing that the more than $200 million ad campaign was primarily "effective in your name recognition." His line of questioning forced the issue into the open in a way that Republican colleagues had not previously pressed.
The contracts themselves raise serious questions beyond the dollar amount. DHS invoked the "national emergency" at the border as it awarded contracts for the campaign, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process designed to prevent waste and corruption. The competition waiver suggested the department used internet research and "industry publications" to identify Safe America Media LLC as one of only four companies capable of quickly doing a successful $200 million ad campaign, even though Safe America Media was only incorporated days earlier.
Breitbart reports that much of Noem's commercial budget, $143 million, was awarded to a company created just 11 days prior, which subcontracted its deal with the "Strategy Group," whose CEO Ben Yoho is married to Noem's now-former assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin.
Kennedy wasn't merely skeptical. He was blunt:
"It's just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, 'Mr. President, here's some ads I've cut, and I'm going to spend $220 million running them' that he would have agreed to that."
Trump later told NBC News that he didn't know about the campaign and that he wasn't "thrilled" with it. "I spent less money than that to become president. I didn't know about it," he said.
The spending alone might have been survivable. What compounded the damage was what Noem said under oath. Noem's assertion at a Senate hearing that President Trump had given his blessing to the $220 million advertising campaign was the final straw that cost her the job, according to Republican senators and other sources familiar with the events.
One GOP senator who requested anonymity said that Noem's claim that Trump personally approved the controversial ads was the "last straw" because it had the effect of "dragging" the president into a potential scandal.
Then came the contradiction that mattered most. Kennedy said: "Her version and the president's version of whether the president, A) was informed and B) consented are decidedly different."
Republican lawmakers were further alarmed when they received word that Noem had refused to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general when he tried to investigate the matter. "We've received communication from the DHS IG that he's not getting cooperation in his investigation," a Republican senator told The Hill.
On Friday, Newsmax co-host Emma Rechenberg put the question directly to Mace. When asked whether an investigation should be launched, Mace didn't hedge:
"I do, and now that I have more of this information, you know, I think that we need to go back to a potential subpoena for her through the Oversight Committee."
She then made the argument that conservatives should want to hear:
"I don't think she walks away from this, and she shouldn't, because as Republicans, we need to hold our own accountable because President Trump is trying to reinstill trust in our institutions, in Congress, in the White House."
That framing matters. This isn't a Democrat-led pile-on. This is a Republican member of the House Oversight Committee saying the party owes it to the president, and to the public, to follow the money.
Mace didn't limit her scrutiny to Noem. She raised a pointed question about Corey Lewandowski, who served as a senior adviser to Noem in a "special government employee" capacity: "Is he going with her? Where is he going in all of this?"
The Strategy Group was involved with Noem's 2022 gubernatorial race, and the company's CEO is married to former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. Corey Lewandowski, a top adviser at DHS, has also previously worked with the firm.
That web of relationships, between the contractor, the secretary's former spokeswoman, and her top adviser, is exactly the kind of conflict that oversight committees exist to examine. Lewandowski's next move becomes a relevant data point.
There will be voices who argue that airing this out publicly damages the party or distracts from the immigration mission. That argument gets it exactly backward.
Conservatives have spent years insisting that government must be held to the same standard it demands of everyone else. That principle doesn't suspend itself when a Republican is in the chair. The leadership change follows weeks of mounting tension surrounding Noem's handling of a $220 million advertising campaign promoting border security. The mission was real. The question is whether the execution served the mission, or served Noem.
Trump has set the tone on fiscal discipline. His administration has made rooting out government waste a defining priority. A Cabinet secretary spending over $200 million of taxpayer funds on ads that prominently feature herself, through no-bid contracts awarded to firms with direct ties to her political operation, is not consistent with that mission. It is, in fact, the opposite of it.
Mace is right. The firing was the right call. But a firing isn't accountability. An investigation is.