By Isabelle D’Antonio | CNN
(CNN) — Tom Homan, now the president’s border czar, was recorded last year accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash by undercover FBI agents in an investigation the Trump Justice Department later closed, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The September 2024 payment arose from a probe that was not targeting Homan, The Times reported, citing people familiar with the case. Homan was investigated for potential bribery and other crimes after he agreed to help the undercover agents, posing as businessmen, secure government contracts in a second Trump administration, the report says.
A person familiar with the matter told CNN that Homan accepted a cash payment in a sting operation.
The cash was inside a bag from the fast-casual chain Cava, The Times reported. MSNBC reported earlier on the investigation.
Investigators began looking into Homan after the original target of a case suggested that a payment to Homan could lead to federal border security contracts, The Times reported. On the tape of the September 2024 meeting, The New York Times reported, Homan appeared to agree to help the undercover agents win contracts if Donald Trump won reelection.
The DOJ shut down the case after Trump began his second term this year, over doubts prosecutors could prove Homan — who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the president’s first term — had agreed to a specific act in exchange for the cash and because he was not in a government position at the time.
FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the matter, which originated under the Biden administration, was subject to a full review by officials with the FBI and DOJ, who “found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”
“The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed,” they said in a statement Saturday.
CNN has attempted to reach Homan for comment. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, slammed the matter as a “blatantly political investigation” and called Homan “a career law enforcement officer and lifelong public servant.”
“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,” she said in a Saturday statement.
A career law enforcement officer, Homan served as the public face of the first Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to step up immigration enforcement before retiring in 2018.
After leaving government, he became a Fox News contributor. He also contributed to Project 2025, the sweeping conservative blueprint for the next Republican president, which Trump distanced himself from during his campaign.
In a sign of his influence in Trump’s orbit, Homan addressed the Republican National Convention in July 2024. Speaking from the stage in Milwaukee, Homan warned immigrants who “Joe Biden has released into our country in violation of federal law: You better start packing now. You’re damn right.”
Less than a week after Trump won reelection, he announced Homan would serve as his administration’s border czar.
CNN’s Evan Perez contributed to this report.