The White House stood behind “border czar” Tom Homan on Monday following reports that he had accepted $50,000 from undercover agents posing as businesspeople during an undercover FBI operation last year, leading to a bribery investigation that was shut down by the Trump administration Justice Department.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized Mr. Homan’s encounter with the undercover agents as an effort by the Biden administration to “entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position.”
“The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border,” she said.
MSNBC first reported Saturday that Mr. Homan had accepted the cash during a 2024 encounter with undercover agents who were posing as businesspeople seeking government contracts that Mr. Homan suggested he could help them get in a second Trump term. Two people familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to discuss a sensitive law enforcement inquiry by name, confirmed details of it to The Associated Press on Monday.
The Trump administration Justice Department, which shut down the probe, said the matter was “subjected to a full review,” but authorities found “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.” The White House criticized the Biden administration’s investigation as politically motivated.
“The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “As a result, the investigation has been closed.”
Ms. Leavitt insisted at a press briefing Monday that Mr. Homan “never took the $50,000 you’re referring to,” though she did not elaborate on what she meant.
The revelation has sparked fresh concerns about political interference in Justice Department matters at a time when Mr. Trump’s call for prosecutions of his adversaries is testing the law enforcement agency’s independence in prosecutorial decision-making. Trump escalated his pressure campaign on the Justice Department over the weekend, publicly calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to move forward with cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff.
“See what happened to Tom Homan, his border czar, who literally accepted a bag of cash — $50,000 — and the investigation was dropped once Trump became president,” Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said on ABC News. “There are just two standards of justice now in this country. If you are a friend of the president, a loyalist of the president, you can get away with nearly anything … but if you are an opponent of the president, you may find yourself in jail.”
Mr. Homan came under Justice Department scrutiny after a target of a separate investigation suggested Mr. Homan was soliciting bribes, one of the people who confirmed details of the investigation told the AP. A second person said law enforcement officials had had internal discussions dating back to last year about the strength of a potential bribery case and the relevant laws that might come into play.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Mr. Homan “has not been involved with any contract award decisions.”
“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,” Ms. Jackson said in a statement.
Mr. Homan has been a key figure behind Mr. Trump’s hardline immigration policies and deportation efforts, serving as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the first Trump administration. Shortly after Mr. Trump’s presidential victory in November, the president announced that Mr. Homan would serve as “border czar” in the incoming administration.
