Before The Fascist Felon took office, FBI agents posed as business executives and met with Tom Homan. They secretly recorded him accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents win government contracts in a second Trump administration.
On Sept. 20, 2024, with hidden cameras recording the scene at a meeting spot in Texas, Homan accepted $50,000 in bills, according to an internal summary of the case and sources.
The cash payment, which was made inside a bag from the food chain Cava, grew out of a long-running counterintelligence investigation that had not been targeting Mr. Homan, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the case.
Tom Homan should be fired! Anyone who doesn’t think he’s still on the take hasn’t been paying attention to how he operates. 📌 Last year the FBI recorded Homan, now the border czar, taking $50,000 promising to help agents posing as business execs win government contracts in a second Trump term.
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) September 20, 2025 at 4:36 PM
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The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said.
It’s unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation. But a Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a “deep state” probe in early 2025 and no further investigative steps were taken, the sources say.
The episode raises questions about whether the administration has sought to shield one of its own officials from legal consequences, and whether Mr. Homan’s actions were considered by the White House when he was appointed to his government role.
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement on Saturday that the investigation “was subjected to a full review by F.B.I. agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”