MS NOW was first to report in September on an undercover FBI operation in which Tom Homan was recorded accepting $50,000 in cash in 2024 after indicating he could help the agents, who were posing as business executives, win government contracts in a second Trump administration.
FBI and Justice Department officials planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise, but the case ultimately stalled after Donald Trump began his second presidential term and made Homan the White House border czar. Trump appointees officially closed the investigation seven months ago.
The search for answers on Capitol Hill, however, is ongoing.
Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, for example, has pushed the DOJ’s inspector general to conduct a “robust investigation” into the bribery probe and the department’s handling of the case to “ensure Mr. Homan’s fitness for the job.” Three Democratic senators — Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Adam Schiff of California, each of whom serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee — have pursued a different course.
As MaddowBlog was first to report in November, the senators filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the DOJ’s Criminal Division, demanding a variety of details related to the case. The trouble with FOIA requests, however, is they tend to take a very long time to generate meaningful responses.
And so, Whitehouse, Blumenthal and Schiff, taking advantage of the procedural rules, asked for expedited processing of their request, pointing to a specific provision of the law: FOIA requests for records are handled quickly if they deal with “a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exists possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence.”
Not surprisingly, the senators made the case that this applies to the Homan controversy. The DOJ’s Office of Information Policy, which handles FOIA requests, nevertheless rejected the senators’ request, telling them it “determined that your request for expedited processing should be denied” — effectively concluding that an expedited review was unwarranted because the Homan controversy isn’t “a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest.”
Whitehouse, Blumenthal and Schiff are now pushing back, telling the DOJ office in a letter sent late last week:
Here, the government’s decision to close a corruption investigation into a high-ranking White House official who was caught taking bribe money from undercover officers spawned a deluge of media coverage, reflecting widespread and exceptional media interest. And Homan’s reported acceptance of the $50,000 bribe from undercover agents, the inability of Homan or any other government official to account for that money, the lack of clarity on whether Homan paid taxes on it or declared it on his required financial disclosures, and the abrupt closure of the investigation once Homan became a White House official all raise questions about the government’s integrity that affect public confidence.
Challenging the DOJ’s findings, the Democratic lawmakers added that the controversy is “undoubtedly” a matter of widespread media interest, “as reflected in the in-depth and intense coverage of Homan’s undercover sting beginning last fall,” which “more than satisfies” the legal requirement.
It’s important to emphasize the DOJ hasn’t formally denied the senators’ request for the relevant documents; it has denied their request to address the matter quickly. That said, the Democrats believe the law is on their side for an expedited review, and additional resistance would open the door to a potential lawsuit.
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For his part, Homan sat down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham shortly after MS NOW broke the story last September, and the host offered him an opportunity to deny the allegations. The White House border czar insisted he “did nothing illegal,” but it was hard not to notice that he carefully avoided the underlying question of whether he accepted $50,000 in cash in a Cava bag.
In January, Homan also appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” and when host Kristen Welker asked, “Where is that $50,000? Did you keep it or did you return it?” the border czar said he “didn’t take $50,000 from anybody.”
Pressed further on whether there was $50,000 in the bag and whether he returned it, Homan said he was “not addressing” the matter, adding, “I will not answer any more of these questions.”
MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian explained online after the controversy first broke, “To settle this, it would be great if the White House would release the case files and any FBI recordings of Homan’s meetings with undercover agents posing as businessmen.”
To date, that hasn’t happened.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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