Competition is fierce to be the dumbest Trump Cabinet secretary. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is no rocket scientist, but is it fair to pick on a guy whose brain got eaten by a worm? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a featherweight, but can we be sure he’s off the sauce? Attorney General Pam Bondi spouts sycophantic nonsense all the time, but isn’t that mostly an act?
No such reservations bar us from naming Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem the biggest fool in Trump’s Cabinet. The climate-denying, puppy-killing former South Dakota governor was widely ridiculed last month when she was unable, at a Senate hearing, to define habeas corpus. But the woman they call ICE Barbie had already secured the title in March by posing in front of Venezuelan deportees caged at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center wearing a $50,000 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona.
How could Noem afford that Rolex? The question is now answered, at least in part, by a ProPublica report that, while governor, Noem helped herself to $80,000 from funds she raised for her dark-money nonprofit, American Resolve Policy Fund. She then omitted to mention it in a financial disclosure form when she joined the Trump administration.
Maybe there’s an innocent explanation, though I can’t fathom what it would be; Noem’s attorney’s statement that she “fully disclosed all of her income on public documents that are readily available” is what the late Ben Bradlee termed a “non-denial denial.” Even if Noem is wrongly accused, a politician who just appears to convert $80,000 in political contributions to personal use should have better sense than to wear a $50,000 watch to a photo op.
Actually, any politician who wears a Rolex is a legitimate target for suspicion. I first made this observation a dozen years ago about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, whom prosecutors were in the process of nailing after he accepted a Rolex from a dietary supplement peddler named Jonnie Williams. McDonnell, a Republican, avoided prison only because the Supreme Court tossed out his conviction in one of five rulings narrowing beyond human recognition the legal definition of political bribery. (The man’s political career was still over.) Republicans aren’t the only offenders: Former Representative Jessie Jackson Jr. and former Birmingham, Alabama, Mayor Larry Langford, both Democrats, each landed in jail after prosecutors noticed their respective Rolexes. You can even find examples abroad: Peruvian President Dina Boluarte was nearly pushed out last year after someone noticed she owned multiple Rolexes.
Not every Rolex-wearing politician is a crook, of course. But it’s never wasted effort to inquire how they came by it. Joe Biden wore a Rolex worth more than $7,000 to his inauguration. That’s much cheaper than Noem’s Rolex, but how did he pay for it? Here’s how: After a long career in the Senate and the Obama administration, he reaped millions in speaking fees. Noem and her husband are much less wealthy than Biden was; their net worth is about $5 million, so a $50,000 watch would represent 1 percent of their total wealth.
The $80,000 payment is recorded in a tax filing by American Resolve Policy Fund as going to Noem’s personal company, Ashwood Strategies LLC, for “fundraising.” Both firms were registered in Delaware within minutes of each other in June 2023. American Resolve, according to the tax filing, has no employees. It’s a sort of petty cash fund, apparently, from which Noem spends as she sees fit, mostly (but not exclusively) on political activities.
Even at this late date, it’s unusual for a politician to convert any portion of political contributions raised to personal use. “If donors to these nonprofits are not just holding the keys to an elected official’s political future but also literally providing them with their income, that’s new and disturbing,” Daniel Weiner, a former Federal Election Commission attorney now at the nonprofit Brennan Center, told ProPublica.
Of course, thanks to Donald Trump this sort of thing is getting less unusual by the hour. During the 2024 campaign, Trump used political contributions to pay his legal fees, and the president’s political suitors routinely fill his pockets by buying meme coins or Truth Social stock or booking stays at Trump resorts. Noem was operating at a much more modest scale, but as the saying goes: The fish rots from the head—picking up the odd Rolex, it would seem, along the way.
