In an undercover operation final 12 months, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White Home border czar, accepting $50,000 in money after indicating he may assist the brokers — who had been posing as enterprise executives — win authorities contracts in a second Trump administration, in accordance with a number of folks acquainted with the probe and inside paperwork reviewed by MSNBC.
The FBI and the Justice Division deliberate to attend to see whether or not Homan would ship on his alleged promise as soon as he grew to become the nation’s high immigration official. However the case indefinitely stalled quickly after Donald Trump grew to become president once more in January, in accordance with six sources acquainted with the matter. In latest weeks, Trump appointees formally closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a standing replace on the case, two of the folks mentioned.
It’s unclear what causes FBI and Justice Division officers gave for shutting down the investigation. However a Trump Justice Division appointee referred to as the case a “deep state” probe in early 2025 and no additional investigative steps had been taken, the sources say.
The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summertime of 2024 after a topic in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting funds in trade for awarding contracts ought to Trump win the presidential election, in accordance with an inside Justice Division abstract of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and folks acquainted with the case. The U.S. Lawyer’s workplace within the Western District of Texas, working with the FBI, requested the Justice Division’s Public Integrity Part to hitch its ongoing probe “into the Border Czar and former Performing Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan and others primarily based on proof of fee from FBI undercover brokers in trade for facilitating future contracts associated to frame enforcement.”
Homan, who served as appearing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement early in Trump’s first time period, overtly claimed through the 2024 marketing campaign that he would play a distinguished function in finishing up Trump’s promised mass deportations.
Requested for remark about MSNBC’s unique reporting, the White Home, the Justice Division and the FBI dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and baseless.
In an announcement offered to MSNBC, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Lawyer Basic Todd Blanche mentioned, “This matter originated underneath the earlier administration and was subjected to a full evaluate by FBI brokers and Justice Division prosecutors. They discovered no credible proof of any prison wrongdoing. The Division’s sources should stay centered on actual threats to the American folks, not baseless investigations. In consequence, the investigation has been closed.”
White Home Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson slammed the probe as a “blatantly political investigation, which discovered no proof of criminality, is yet one more instance of how the Biden Division of Justice was utilizing it’s sources to focus on President Trump’s allies slightly than examine actual criminals and the thousands and thousands of unlawful aliens who flooded our nation.”
“Tom Homan has not been concerned with any contract award selections. He’s a profession legislation enforcement officer and lifelong public servant who’s doing an exceptional job on behalf of President Trump and the nation,” she added on behalf of Homan, a senior White Home worker.
Homan didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Undercover FBI brokers posing as contractors communicated and met a number of instances final summer season with a enterprise colleague who launched them to Homan, and with Homan himself, who indicated he would facilitate securing contracts for them in trade for cash as soon as he was in workplace, in accordance with paperwork and the folks acquainted with the case.
On Sept. 20, 2024, with hidden cameras recording the scene at a gathering spot in Texas, Homan accepted $50,000 in payments, in accordance with an inside abstract of the case and sources.
FBI brokers and Justice Division prosecutors took no additional investigative steps within the ultimate months of 2024, the folks mentioned, and anticipated to maintain monitoring Homan to find out if he landed an official function and would make good on steering contracts in a future Trump administration.
When particular brokers in Texas started probing the topic’s declare that Homan was soliciting bribes, the White Home border czar, 63, was president and proprietor of a personal consulting enterprise that mentioned it may assist corporations within the border safety business win authorities contracts. Homan typically accompanied Trump on the marketing campaign path in 2023 and 2024, and for months earlier than the presidential election publicly touted that he anticipated to supervise implementation of Trump’s immigration insurance policies.
“Trump comes again in January, I’ll be on his heels coming again, and I’ll run the largest deportation operation this nation’s ever seen,” Homan mentioned on the Nationwide Conservatism Convention in July 2024.
Tom Homan speaks as Donald Trump listens at a major election evening celebration in Nashua, N.H., on Jan. 23, 2024. (Matt Rourke / AP file)
A number of FBI and Justice officers believed that they’d a robust prison case in opposition to Homan for conspiracy to commit bribery primarily based on recording him accepting money and his obvious promise to help with contracts, in accordance with 4 folks acquainted with the probe. Homan may have been charged with against the law then, authorized consultants say, however his case was uncommon: He was not a public official, and Trump was not president on the time he accepted cash within the FBI’s undercover sting, so his actions didn’t clearly match underneath an ordinary bribery cost.
Prime officers privately debated the attainable expenses given Homan’s standing on the time, folks acquainted with the case mentioned. However a number of concluded it will be higher for the investigation to proceed to watch his actions as soon as he was again in public workplace. Based on a doc reviewed by MSNBC, Justice officers had been eyeing 4 potential prison expenses in his case: conspiracy, bribery and two sorts of fraud.
MSNBC requested authorized consultants a few hypothetical state of affairs just like the Homan probe. They mentioned an individual who guarantees to affect federal contracts after they change into a public official can’t be charged underneath the federal bribery statutes till they’re named or appointed to such a submit. If the individual did get the administration job after which reaffirmed his promise or communicated in a roundabout way about his plan to ship on his settlement, investigators may make a robust bribery case.
It’s nonetheless against the law, nevertheless, for anybody to hunt cash to improperly affect federal contracts, the authorized consultants mentioned, whether or not they’re a public official or not, and whether or not they ever delivered on their promise or not. Folks on this class could possibly be charged with conspiracy or fraud, they are saying.
“If somebody who will not be but a public official, however expects to be, takes bribes in trade for agreeing to take official acts after they’re appointed, they’ll’t be charged with bribery,” mentioned Randall Eliason, the previous chief of public corruption prosecutions within the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in D.C. and former white-collar legislation professor. “However they are often charged with conspiracy to commit bribery. In a conspiracy cost, the crime is the settlement to commit a prison act sooner or later.”
On Nov. 11, 2024, President Trump introduced he would make Homan his border czar, a White Home adviser function, which — not like the job of director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — didn’t require Senate affirmation or an intensive FBI background examine.
A number of FBI and Justice Division officers believed Homan’s acceptance of the money offered robust proof that they need to proceed to pursue after Homan took public workplace. The Public Integrity Part, a squad of seasoned public corruption prosecutors usually assigned to delicate circumstances involving elected and different high-profile figures, agreed to hitch the case in late November 2024, in accordance with paperwork reviewed by MSNBC.
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, nevertheless, in both late January or February 2025, former appearing Deputy Lawyer Basic Emil Bove was briefed on the case and informed Justice Division officers he didn’t help the investigation, in accordance with two folks acquainted with the case.
Across the similar time, the Public Integrity Part was battling with Bove over his demand that they dismiss a bribery case in opposition to New York Mayor Eric Adams. The part’s supervisors, who would resign one after the other in February slightly than comply with dismiss the Adams case, had assigned a high supervisor to assist oversee the Homan case with federal prosecutors within the Western District of Texas, the place the investigation started, two folks mentioned.
Homan had spent three many years in federal border safety and immigration enforcement. A former police officer from upstate New York, Homan had began work as a Border Patrol agent within the Eighties and later was promoted to a number of supervisory jobs. In 2013, President Barack Obama elevated Homan to function head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation department.
When Trump was first elected president in 2017, he appointed Homan as appearing head of ICE. In that function, Homan pushed the controversial “zero-tolerance” coverage for immigrants searching for to cross the border, ensuing within the separation of hundreds of migrant kids from their dad and mom and members of the family.
Homan’s nomination to change into the everlasting ICE director stalled within the Senate amid widespread criticism over the administration’s family-separations insurance policies and Senate Democrats’ opposition to his affirmation. After his prolonged profession in authorities service, Homan introduced in April 2018 he would retire.
Homan then launched his consulting agency, Homeland Strategic Consulting. Its web site boasted of its work with the departments of Homeland Safety, Protection, Justice and others: “Now we have a confirmed observe file of opening doorways and bringing profitable relationships to our purchasers, leading to tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of federal contracts to personal corporations.”
Through the Biden administration, as Trump ready to run once more for president, Homan remained near Trump and his advisers, working as a Fox Information contributor and with the Heritage Basis, in addition to contributing to Challenge 2025, the right-wing blueprint for Trump’s second time period.
When Homan grew to become Trump’s high border official in 2025, his consulting work and monetary ties to frame safety and immigration-related contractors spurred questions from Democrats in Congress about his potential conflicts of curiosity.
Many anticipated Homan, a trusted Trump ally, to serve if Trump had been re-elected in 2024. In a December 2023 interview on the slain conservative activist’s eponymous podcast “The Charlie Kirk Present,” Homan promised he’d be pushing a sturdy elimination of immigrants when Trump was re-elected.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation operation this nation has ever seen,” Homan informed Benny Johnson, a right-wing commentator and host on the present. “And I’m not going apologize for it.”
After Trump was elected a second time in 2024, amid questions on Homan’s monetary relationships with purchasers who sought work associated to the border, Homan mentioned he had no battle and would take steps to stop one. He mentioned he was shutting down his consulting enterprise and would take away himself from discussions of particular contracts to keep away from the looks of a battle of curiosity.
“As Border Czar, you’re uniquely positioned to assist your former enterprise shopper reap an enormous windfall from the Trump Administration’s spending on immigration enforcement,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the rating Democrat on the Home Judiciary Committee, wrote in a letter final month asking for paperwork and communications with one other agency Homan labored for, Geo Group, a serious immigration detention contractor. Raskin was joined by Reps. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, in urgent for solutions about Homan’s potential conflicts.
Requested a few hypothetical state of affairs of an individual promising assist with contracts as soon as they get into public workplace, Eliason mentioned federal legislation makes it against the law to strike a corrupt settlement to assist affect authorities contracts and selections, irrespective of the id of the individual or whether or not they succeed. He mentioned an individual who will not be a public official but however guarantees to exert affect improperly after they get the job — and accepts or solicits cash to take action — will be charged with conspiracy.
Eliason pointed to the Reagan-era bribery scandal involving the now-defunct protection contractor Wedtech. Eugene Wallach, a lawyer and good friend of Lawyer Basic Edwin Meese III, was convicted of conspiracy to commit crimes by taking substantial funds from Wedtech whereas promising to affect contracts as soon as he landed a high-level Justice Division job underneath Meese. (A better court docket later overturned Wallach’s conviction because of a defective jury instruction.)
“The defendant is agreeing that he’ll commit the crime of bribery as soon as he’s appointed to be a public official,” Eliason added. “That settlement itself is the conspiracy crime, and the truth that it by no means truly came about will not be a protection. That may be true if he had been by no means even appointed to something in any respect.”
This text was initially revealed on MSNBC.com