The Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, was caught on tape accepting a bag filled with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents in Texas in September 2024, when he was a private citizen, according to two people familiar with the matter and a government document confirming the existence of the probe.
At the time, Homan was being floated for a top immigration job in the incoming administration and allegedly took the money from agents posing as businessmen in exchange for potentially helping the men land contracts related to immigration enforcement if President Donald Trump won the election, the people said.
The Justice Department, in the final months of the Biden administration, launched a bribery investigation into Homan, but the Trump administration shut it down this year, citing a lack of “credible evidence” and calling it a “political investigation.”
“This blatantly political investigation, which found no evidence of illegal activity, is yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “Tom Homan has not been involved with any contract award decisions. He is a career law enforcement officer and lifelong public servant who is doing a phenomenal job on behalf of President Trump and the country.”
Homan did not immediately return a request for comment.
The investigation, which was first reported by MSNBC, stemmed from an unrelated counterintelligence probe – which Homan was not the target of – during which undercover FBI agents met the chief executive of a government contracting business focused on immigration operations and detention management. That executive proposed in front of the undercover agents to pay $1 million to Homan in exchange for a contract, and a plan was hatched in which the undercover agents would meet Homan and pay him the cash, according to the people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The case was launched in the Western District of Texas, but the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section – which has historically overseen cases involving public officials and potential voting crimes – became involved in November 2024, one of the people said.
“This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. “They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”
Because Homan was not yet a government official at the time he accepted the money and Trump had not yet been elected, it could have been tricky to bring bribery charges, though at least some people in the government felt that there was adequate evidence showing Homan would be getting a powerful job in the incoming administration to bring such charges, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Before Trump took office, for example, Homan touted on social media and in public appearances that he would be returning to the administration and “running the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”
In 2016, the Supreme Court overturned the public corruption conviction of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, in a decision that imposed a higher standard for federal prosecutors who charge public officials with wrongdoing – and legal experts said that precedent would have made it harder to prosecute the Homan case.
Jonathan Kravis, a former prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section who now works in private practice, said bringing the case would depend on exactly what Homan promised and from what position he said he would deliver those favors.
Regardless, Kravis said, the recording of Homan accepting $50,000 in cash should trigger a robust investigation to determine whether the Trump official attempted to deliver on his promises once he assumed power.
“The problem is that in the summer 2024, Homan doesn’t know exactly what his position will be in the Trump administration,” Kravis said. “But it will certainly merit some follow up.”
Created in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Public Integrity Section has dramatically shrunk during the Trump administration, dropping from around 30 prosecutors at the end of the Biden administration to fewer than five today.
The Justice Department has proposed permanently shrinking the unit, giving U.S. attorney’s offices around the country more authority in overseeing prosecutions of lawmakers and other government officials. The Justice Department has long required the Public Integrity Section to be consulted or sign off on investigations involving public officials, but the unit has lost much of that authority during the Trump administration.
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