Trump Taps Scandal-Plagued Governor Noem With Zero Relevant Experience For Homeland Security Secretary

Appointment of Noem to Homeland Security Post Proves Loyalty Test Will Overrule Qualifications For Trump Cabinet

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, it was reported that President-elect Donald Trump will nominate South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security. Noem, who has prioritized fealty to Trump over the last few years, is uniquely unprepared and unqualified for the post. 

“Installing someone so extreme and untrustworthy with zero national security credentials to this post is dangerous and reckless – and the Senate should reject Governor Noem’s nomination outright,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk. “It shows Donald Trump is willing to put political fealty above what’s best to protect Americans from serious national security threats like terrorism. Noem’s history of abusing taxpayer resources for personal benefit and fabricating meetings with world leaders are not serious qualifications for this serious post. Surrounding himself with loyalists like Noem is how Trump intends to carry out his plans to gut checks and balances, consolidate power, take more control over our lives, and tear apart communities.” 

Today, Accountable.US launched the Trump Accountability War Room to scrutinize President-elect Donald Trump’s appointments, executive actions, and legislative agenda. The first Trump administration was littered with officials using their offices for self-enrichment, all while gutting protections for Americans and harming families. Now, with the help of Project 2025, we face even more threats to American rights and freedoms and another four years of abuses of power and conflicts of interest.

Noem’s extreme, scandal-ridden record includes:

• Noem took several trips on the state airplane that “blurred the lines between official travel and attending either family or political events,” seemingly violating a 2006 law enacted by voters. The trips sparked a complaint to the state ethics board that was referred to that state’s Division of Criminal Investigation.
• In her book called “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward,” Noem lied several times about meeting with world leaders, including North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and French President Emmanuel Macron. There are zero congressional travel documents that indicate Noem would have met Kim, and Macron’s office has said a meeting with Noem was never scheduled.
• Noem has zero experience in federal homeland security policy and her time in Congress never included a stint on the House Committee on Homeland Security.
• South Dakota’s ethics board took undisclosed “appropriate action” after discovering that Noem “intervened with a state agency to influence her daughter’s application for a real estate appraiser license.” In 2020, Noem “took a hands-on role in a state agency soon after it had moved to deny her daughter’s application for an appraiser license in 2020,” calling a meeting to discuss a plan that would give her daughter “another chance to show she could meet federal standards.”
• Also in her book, Noem described killing her 14-month-old puppy after deeming the dog “untrainable,” and even doubled down on her decision after public criticism.
• Noem has also been banned from several South Dakotan Native tribes’ reservations “over her racist assertions that Natives in the state work with drug cartels and neglect their children.”