Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary and current Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas Kristi Noem and her husband Bryon racked up millions in debt, according to a new report. Bryon’s participation in the “bimbofication” fetish community was recently revealed, as this Audacy report explains.
According to 2024 financial disclosure forms cited by the New York Post, the Noems listed between $2.6 million and $3.25 million in debt dating back to 2020. It said that five out of the six loans were obtained by Bryon for his car wash and insurance businesses, with one joint mortgage loan coming in at $100,001 to $250,000.
While he was living a public life as Kristi’s husband and a father of three, Bryon was also spending tens of thousands on women he met online, according to reports. One woman claimed he sent her $25,000, another said he sent her amounts totaling $30,000 dating back to 2023, including a $1,500 per-month retainer as payments for body modification surgery. A sex worker also said he paid her for online chats multiple times.
Kristi was already facing controversy over the deadly Operation Metro Surge immigration crackdown in Minnesota when President Donald Trump announced that she would be replaced as the head of DHS earlier this year. Then, the story about Bryon broke and she said she was “blindsided.”
During her time as head of the DHS, Kristi Noem’s financial decisions were questioned. For example, ProPublica reported last November that the Strategy Group – a firm that it said played a “central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign,” and has links to Kristi, her top DHA advisor Corey Lewandowski and her chief DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin – organized a commercial shoot at Mount Rushmore as part of a $200 million taxpayer-funded ad campaign.
“Her agency 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,” ProPublica said. It also reported that while the Strategy Group did not appear on public documents about the contract, the main recipient was a “mysterious Delaware company, which was created days before the deal was finalized.”
That company is called Safe America Media and lists its address as the Virginia home of a veteran Republican operative, Michael McElwain. ProPublica said there is “little evidence that firm could handle a nine-figure federal contract on its own,” as it reported having just five employees in the past.
Charles Tiefer, a leading authority on federal contract law and former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that the Strategy Group’s role in the campaign could prompt investigations by both the DHS inspector general and the House Oversight Committee, per ProPublica.
“Hiding your friends as subcontractors is like playing hide the salami with the taxpayer,” Tiefer said.
ProPublica also said that Kristi gave herself “an unusual degree of control” over the $150 million granted to the DHS through the Big Beautiful Bill legislation.
The filing documents cited by the Post listed Kristi as a “managing member” of a Delaware-based LLC called Ashwood Strategies. Citing a tax return, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington watchdog organization said that that Ashwood Strategies received a cut of the money raised for a nonprofit that promotes her interests while she was serving as governor of South Dakota in 2024.
