Attorney general pleads ignorance about DHS goon’s alleged $50K bribe

Posted on October 7, 2025 by Emily Singer

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday wouldn’t say where a reported bribe paid to a top Trump official ended up.

In September 2024, Tom Homan, who currently serves as the administration’s “border czar,” reportedly took a $50,000 cash bribe from undercover FBI agents who were posing as businessmen. In turn, Homan reportedly agreed to help them obtain border-security contracts from a potential Donald Trump administration.

However, once Trump took office, his politicized Department of Justice closed an investigation into the matter, seemingly allowing Homan to get off scot-free.

As if that weren’t bad enough, it still leaves the question about where the $50,000 is now.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, probed Bondi at a Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee about that very matter.

"What became of the $50,000 in cash that the FBI delivered, evidently in a paper bag, to Mr. Homan?" Whitehouse asked Bondi.

"The investigation of Mr. Homan was subjected to a full review,” Bondi replied, avoiding the question. “They found no evidence of wrongdoing.”

"What became of the $50,000? Did the FBI get it back?" Whitehouse asked, not letting Bondi off the hook.

White House border czar Tom Homan, shown in May.

"You're welcome to talk to the FBI," Bondi said, again deflecting, even though the FBI reports to Bondi.

After Bondi kept refusing to answer, Whitehouse replied, “I can see I'm not going to get a straight answer from you to a very simple question.”

The question should have been easy for Bondi to answer: Either Homan kept the money, or he gave it back. If he gave it back, Bondi could have easily said so. But if Homan kept it, did he report the earnings on his tax filings? If he didn't report it, Homan would have committed a second crime—tax evasion.

“On top of the Epstein files, she needs to release EVERYTHING on the Tom Homan investigation, including the video,” Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee wrote Tuesday in a post on X, referring to a reported video of the bribe. “Where is the $50k?”

It’s unclear if we will ever get the answer. Democracy Forward, a group seeking to stop corruption in the executive branch, sued the Trump administration on Monday for refusing to release the recording of Homan accepting the bribe.

“The Trump-Vance administration continues to erode public trust and weaken accountability with the American people,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a news release. “These law enforcement agencies must follow the law and release this critical recording without delay. The public deserves answers about why this investigation was closed and whether senior Trump officials are being shielded from scrutiny that would apply to anyone else.”

This case is the latest in which Trump has let his allies break the law, while at the same time seeking to punish his perceived enemies with sham charges.

Already, Trump’s corrupted DOJ successfully sought an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, even though federal prosecutors do not believe Comey committed a crime.

And MSNBC reported on Monday that federal prosecutors are bracing for a top colleague to be fired once she tells her boss, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, that there is no reason to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James, another enemy of Trump’s.

Trump’s top deportation thug reportedly probed by FBI over bribe

Posted on September 22, 2025 by Oliver Willis

Tom Homan, the “border czar” who has been the architect of some of the Trump administration’s most harmful and callous immigration actions, was reportedly under FBI investigation for accepting a bribe—but the case was dropped after Donald Trump was sworn in as president in January.

MSNBC reported on Monday that Homan allegedly took $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as contractors. According to government documents, Homan was recorded on camera taking the payment at a location in Texas in September 2024.

Homan reportedly took the cash in exchange for the promise of securing government contracts when the Trump administration took over in January of this year. MSNBC reported that FBI and Department of Justice officials believed they had a case against Homan for conspiracy to commit bribery.

In response to the outlet’s reporting, FBI Director Kash Patel argued that the investigation was a partisan operation that began under the Biden administration. Patel didn’t explain why Biden’s team failed to bring charges if partisanship was the motivation.

Even as the Trump team was burying the Homan case, the administration began orchestrating criminal investigations of Trump’s political adversaries. Those machinations recently came to a head after the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was fired because he wouldn’t charge New York state Attorney General Letitia James with trumped-up crimes.

This isn’t the first time that Homan’s name has come up in connection to corruption.

In May, it was reported that Homan worked as a consultant for the Geo Group, which operates immigration detention centers. Homan was paid a minimum of $5,000, although disclosing the exact amount he made isn’t mandatory—and then pushed mass deportation efforts as border czar, generating new business and lots of federal payments for his former employer.

Homan has been the public and extremely pugilistic face of the administration’s harsh immigration policies. He has made frequent media appearances, including a near-ubiquitous presence on Fox News. The MAGA mouthpiece news network has buried the latest report on his actions, naturally.

The former border patrol agent has a history of racist affiliations and as border czar has embraced racial profiling and using scare tactics against largely Latino migrant communities. He has admitted that ICE has arrested people without cause, and has threatened cities with Democratic leaders who have said they will protect immigrant communities.

Homan has even said he would use the Department of Justice to go after Democratic officials like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for speaking out against deportation actions. Now we know that this same department is apparently uninterested in pursuing justice if the crime may have been committed by Homan himself.

Trump builds strong impeachment case against himself

Posted on September 22, 2025 by Emily Singer

The United States' descent into authoritarianism accelerated over the weekend, as President Donald Trump used the power of the presidency to punish his enemies and reward his allies—just like a dictator would do.

On Saturday, Trump admitted that he fired the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia because he would not charge his perceived enemies with crimes—a blatant example of the kind of lawfare he wrongly says he’s been subjected to.

Trump then demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi appoint someone who will charge California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and New York state Attorney General Tish James with federal crimes, even though there is no evidence to warrant such charges.

Trump made the comment on Saturday in a Truth Social message, which sounded a lot like he was trying to direct-message Bondi rather than make a public post.

Trump wrote:

Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT

Later Saturday night, Trump officially announced he was appointing Halligan to replace ousted U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert.

Halligan, who served as one of Trump’s personal attorneys, is currently working on the Trump administration’s effort to whitewash American history by purging the Smithsonian museums of content Trump and Republicans think promotes “improper ideology.”

Meanwhile, also on Saturday, MSNBC and The New York Times both reported that Trump's racist border czar, Tom Homan, was caught in an FBI sting in September 2024, in which he allegedly accepted a $50,000 cash bribe from two undercover agents posing as businessmen, in exchange for getting those agents federal contracts in a potential Trump administration.

But when Trump took office, the investigation was closed after FBI Director Kash Patel got involved.

That means Trump is seeking to prosecute his enemies who did not break the law, while letting his allies off after committing apparent violations of the law.

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a news conference at the White House on Aug. 11.

“White House knew Homan had accepted $50K to influence contracts. They appointed him anyways. Then they disbanded the DOJ's Public Integrity unit and quashed the Homan investigation. There's no end to the corruption in Trump's White House,” Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon wrote in a post on X.

If that lawfare wasn't terrifying enough, the Department of Defense told media outlets that they are no longer permitted to report on unauthorized information.

“Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” reads a memo sent to reporters and obtained by the Associated Press.

If reporters do not agree to become stenographers for the Pentagon, they risk losing their press credentials—a move that experts say is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

“This policy operates as a prior restraint on publication, which is considered the most serious of First Amendment violations,” Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told CNN.

That is just the latest First Amendment violation for the Trump administration. Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr demanded that ABC remove late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel from the air or else face consequences. The network folded.

Ultimately, Trump’s actions during this weekend alone should get him impeached and removed from office. But given that Congress is filled with Republican yes-men who excuse Dear Leader’s actions both because they are scared to anger the MAGA base and because they are okay with lawlessness if it benefits them.