Just last week, Bluestem posted about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's latest border photo op in Details scant on Guard’s border deployment as Noem visits troops--except for using state's Emergency & Disaster Fund to pay for it.
Earlier in 2021 she had accepted a private donation to pay for an earlier deployment, as I posted in Our own Ludlow? Noem partying like 1914 with use of private money to deploy National Guard.
Now Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has some of the receipts onthe logistics of that earlier deployment. Sara Wiatrak repots in How Kristi Noem’s team prepared to defend a $1 million donation to send SD troops to the border:
In the summer of 2021, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem deployed the South Dakota National Guard (SDNG) to Texas’s Mexico border with a $1 million private donation from billionaire GOP donor and Tennessee resident Willis Johnson. The use of the private donation to activate the troops was widely covered in national media not only as unprecedented, but also unethical and legally dubious. New records obtained by CREW provide a behind-the-scenes look at how Noem’s and SDNG staff communicated about the donation amid mounting controversy in the final days of June.
An email from Aaron Scheibe, Noem’s then-chief of staff, reveals he made significant edits to an initially simple script for Noem to recite the day after the deployment’s announcement. In an effort to seemingly boost support for the decision, Scheibe added copious anti-immigration rhetoric, including that “thousands of illegal aliens are coming into our country,” “illegal” drugs pouring over the border were “devastating communities,” and Americans deserve a government “that secures the Southern Border and protects us all from the threat posed by uncontrolled, illegal immigration.” He added on behalf of Noem, “That’s why I’m doing this.”
Then-SDNG Adjutant General Jeffrey Marlette was also involved in framing Noem’s language around the deployment and the donation, despite later asserting that he was unaware that a private donation would be used until the deployment was already planned. Upon reviewing Noem’s press release about the deployment, he replied, “I think the statement ‘The deployment will be paid for by a private donation’ will start a flurry of inquiries from the media, but it is a true statement.” The message and an update about the timing of the release was received by Edwin Vanderwolde, SDNG’s director of Joint Staff, who forwarded the thread to an Air Force official who only responded, “Ack.”
Days later, on June 30, 2021, Marlette sent an email to Noem’s team providing bullets on how to defend the donation in a script for Noem following the announcement. The bullets included, “Private donations to the State of SD are not illegal or uncommon,” and “this is a National Security risk to our country and ul [sic] to our State.” He said his approach “defeats the media’s misguided assumptions that this is political, illegal, or not within [Noem’s] powers.” . . .
According to documents previously obtained by CREW, the troops Noem sent to the border had uneventful days with no encounters and little to do. In May 2022, CREW obtained records revealing that the deployment cost $1,451,699.59.
Read the entire article on CREW's website.
Illustration: Sara Wiatrak/CREW | Kristi Noem photo by Gage Skidmore; Kristi Noem photo by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license.
Related posts
- Noem plans to use emergency and disaster money to pay for border troop deployment
- Governor Kristi Noem orders South Dakota National Guard troops to Mexican border again
- Our own Ludlow? Noem partying like 1914 with use of private money to deploy National Guard
- AP: ‘Slow day:’ South Dakota National Guard emails don’t match Noem border ‘war’ talk.
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