Josh Kaplan

FBI Director Kash Patel Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Dan Bongino, Two Other Senior Staff As the FBI’s deputy director, Bongino receives some of the country’s most sensitive secrets, including the President’s Daily Brief. His ascent to that position without passing a standard bureau backgr...

NEW: FBI Director Kash Patel granted waivers to Deputy Director Dan Bongino and two newly hired senior FBI staff, exempting them from polygraph exams normally required to gain access to America’s most sensitive classified information, officials said.

In a statement, DHS said, “DHS has no involvement with the selection of subcontractors.”

They said the agency does its contracting “by the book” and the process is run by career officials. “It is very sad that Pro Publica would seek to defame these public servants,” DHS added.

McLaughlin’s husband, Strategy Group CEO Ben Yoho, didn’t respond to questions. It’s not clear how much his company has been paid.

Sheahan also didn’t respond to questions.

Asked about the firm’s work for DHS, DHS spox Tricia McLaughlin said, “We don’t have visibility into why they were chosen.”

“I don’t know who they’re a subcontractor with, but I don’t work with them because I have a conflict of interest and I fully recused myself," she said.

We’re still reporting on Kristi Noem, contracts at DHS, and the ad deal. If you have any information we should know, my email is joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and I’m on the encrypted messaging app Signal (you can message me at js_kaplan.85)

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts The company is run by the husband of Noem’s chief DHS spokesperson and has personal and business ties to Noem and her aides. DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rule...

Read the full story here: www.propublica.org/article/kris...

The same year the company got that big South Dakota ad contract, it sent up to $25k to one of Noem’s closest aides.

That aide, 28-year-old Madison Sheahan, now second-in-command at ICE.

This isn’t the first time the firm has gotten public money through a Noem contract. When she was governor of SD, the company got $8.5M in state funds for another ad campaign (starring her).

A former Noem admin official told us that Noem quietly intervened to push the deal.

This is the latest ad in the campaign, made by the Strategy Group at Mount Rushmore.

Noem filmed it on the second day of the government shutdown. It’s aired in recent days on “Fox & Friends.”

The consulting firm, the Ohio-based Strategy Group, has longstanding personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS.

It played a central role in Noem’s 2022 reelection campaign.

And the company’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS.

Where that $220M ended up has been unknown. The main recipient listed on public docs was a Delaware LLC created days before the deal was signed.

We found there's been a secret beneficiary: a GOP consulting firm with a much longer — & more interesting — track record.

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts The company is run by the husband of Noem’s chief DHS spokesperson and has personal and business ties to Noem and her aides. DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rule...

First, let's back up.

Noem has starred in a sprawling ad campaign she’s said is a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration—so crucial that DHS bypassed the normal competitive bidding process, designed to prevent waste & corruption in federal contracts www.propublica.org/article/kris...

Kristi Noem sits on a horse wearing a cowboy hat. In the background is Mount Rushmore.

NEW: We’ve uncovered the first known example of taxpayer money flowing from DHS to businesses controlled by Kristi Noem’s allies and friends.

It’s part of a money trail that’s been shrouded in secrecy—and involves $220 million, a mysterious Delaware LLC & a horse named Gill.

Senior Editor, Business New York City, United States

JOB ALERT! We are hiring a business editor.

You have an unerring instinct for the jugular of the wealthy & powerful? Build a team with me and we’ll get after it!

job-boards.greenhouse.io/propublica/j...

You can email me or on Signal at 718-496-5233

White words on a black background read: 50+ Immigration agents have the authority to detain whom they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally. We found more than 50 Americans who were held after agents questioned their citizenship. They were almost all Latino. ~130 Agents also can arrest citizens who allegedly interfered with or assaulted officers. We compiled cases of about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, accused of assaulting or impeding officers. ~20 Among the citizens detained are nearly 20 children, including two with cancer.

Hi, I'm the ProPublica reporter who's been tracking an unusual stat: U.S. citizens grabbed by immigration agents.

I did it because the government isn’t.

This is what I found.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Took Money Directly From Chinese Investors, Company Insider Testifies The newly unsealed testimony marks the first time direct Chinese investment in the company has been disclosed, raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of America’s most importan...

NEW: Elon Musk’s SpaceX has taken money directly from Chinese investors, according to newly unsealed testimony. It's the first time direct Chinese investment in the defense contractor has been disclosed. www.propublica.org/article/elon...

Arduous and Unequal: The Fight to Get FEMA Housing Assistance After Helene An analysis by ProPublica and The Assembly of the more rural counties in North Carolina hardest hit by Helene shows that the households that got the most aid tended to have the highest incomes.

NEW: Income isn’t supposed to play a role in how much housing assistance FEMA gives families.

But in some North Carolina counties, the highest-income homeowners received two to three times as much money after Hurricane Helene as those with lower incomes.

With @theassemblync.bsky.social

Kristi Noem Fast-Tracked Millions in Disaster Aid to Florida Tourist Attraction After Campaign Donor Intervened The DHS chief has been widely criticized for slowing down FEMA’s response after natural disasters. Texts and emails obtained by ProPublica point to an effective way to get help faster: have one of Noe...

NEW: Kristi Noem has been widely criticized for slowing down FEMA's response to natural disasters.

But she fast-tracked $11 million+ to fix a Florida tourist attraction — after one of her big donors reached out. www.propublica.org/article/kris...

DOGE Targeted Him on Social Media. Then the Taliban Took His Family. Afghan scholar Mohammad Halimi, who fled the Taliban in 2021, had worked to help U.S. diplomats understand his homeland. Then DOGE put his family’s lives at risk by exposing his sensitive work for a U...

Horryifying.

DOGE made false allegations against an Afghan man who had helped the U.S.

Then the Taliban captured, blindfolded and beat his family.

www.propublica.org/article/doge...

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...

New: Kristi Noem secretly took a cut of political donations.

A dark money group routed the funds to Noem's Delaware LLC, tax records show. The original source of the money remains unknown.

www.propublica.org/article/kris...

THREAD: An ex-DOGE engineer with no government or medical experience used AI to identify which Veterans Affairs contracts to kill, labeling them as “MUNCHABLE.”

@vernalcoleman.bsky.social @ericumansky.bsky.social and I got the code. Here’s what it tells us 1/

Trump Administration Knew Vast Majority of Venezuelans Sent to Salvadoran Prison Had Not Been Convicted of U.S. Crimes Homeland Security records reveal that officials knew that more than half of the 238 deportees were labeled as having no criminal record in the U.S. and had only violated immigration laws.

NEW: We obtained DHS data that shows the US knew only 32 of the 238 Venezuelans deported to a prison in El Salvador in March were convicted of US crimes, only 6 of those violent. Trump called them “savages,” “monsters” and "the worst of the worst.” www.propublica.org/article/trum...

THREAD: We recently heard that the Trump administration was leaning on the government of Gambia to help Elon Musk. For weeks, our team made phone calls, wrote letters and knocked on folks’ doors to try to confirm it. But we were stuck.

So our reporters got on a plane to Banjul. 1/

The Trump Administration Leaned on African Countries. The Goal: Get Business for Elon Musk. The State Department has intervened on behalf of Musk’s satellite internet company in five developing nations. In Gambia, U.S. diplomats have lobbied and browbeat at least seven government ministers a...

NEW: Behind closed doors, the Trump administration has mounted a “maximum pressure” campaign on a poor African democracy.

The objective: push the country to help Elon Musk's Starlink business.

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

The Price of Remission When I was diagnosed with cancer, I set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. I’ve covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What I discovered shocked ...

I have written many healthcare stories, but never before have I written about my own health. I decided to do so after learning one of my drugs costs nearly $1,000 a pill and just 25 cents to make. What I found was an incredible story of discovery and exploitation. www.propublica.org/article/revl...

How Elon Musk’s SpaceX Secretly Allows Investment From China As a U.S. military contractor, SpaceX sees allowing Chinese ownership as fraught. But it will allow the investment if it comes through secrecy hubs like the Cayman Islands, court records say. “It is c...

NEW: As a defense contractor, Elon Musk's SpaceX sees allowing Chinese ownership as fraught. But it will allow the investment if it comes through offshore secrecy hubs like the Cayman Islands, court records say.

Expert: “It is certainly a policy of obfuscation." www.propublica.org/article/elon...

“The President Wanted It and I Did It”: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump In a recording obtained by ProPublica, acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek portrayed his agency as facing peril, while also encouraging patience with “the DOGE kids.”

An extraordinary, must-read story about what's happening inside the Social Security Administration.

“Are we going to break something?” the agency's head asked in a meeting, referring to what DOGE has been doing with Social Security data. “I don’t know.” www.propublica.org/article/reco...

“The President Wanted It and I Did It”: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump In a recording obtained by ProPublica, acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek portrayed his agency as facing peril, while also encouraging patience with “the DOGE kids.”

This article is a genuine must read if you care about the future of the US, the economy and Social Security. Not exaggerating. www.propublica.org/article/reco...

How the Terrorgram Collective’s Neo-Nazi Influencers Groomed a Teen to Kill The murders of two people outside an LGBTQ+ bar at first looked like the act of a lone shooter. A ProPublica and FRONTLINE investigation shows they were, in fact, the culmination of a coordinated,…

NEW: The murders of two people outside an LGBTQ+ bar at first looked like the act of a lone shooter. A ProPublica and @frontlinepbs.bsky.social investigation shows they were, in fact, the culmination of a coordinated, international recruiting effort by online extremists.

WATCH LIVE: Dan Bishop testifies in Senate confirmation hearing for deputy director of OMB YouTube video by PBS NewsHour

Dan Bishop, nominated for a top post in Trump's OMB, acknowledged under questioning by @whitehouse.senate.gov that he lived in the D.C. townhouse that is part of an effort to influence powerful politicians. Says he paid fair market rent but does not offer a number www.youtube.com/live/coQ9vsn...