White House backs ‘border czar’ after reports he accepted cash during undercover FBI probe last year

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House stood behind “border czar” Tom Homan on Monday following reports that he had accepted $50,000 from undercover agents posing as businesspeople during an undercover FBI operation last year, leading to a bribery investigation that was shut down by the Trump administration Justice Department.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized Homan’s encounter with the undercover agents as an effort by the Biden administration to “entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position.”

“The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border,” she said.

MSNBC first reported Saturday that Homan had accepted the cash during a 2024 encounter with undercover agents who were posing as businesspeople seeking government contracts that Homan suggested he could help them get in a second Trump term. Two people familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to discuss a sensitive law enforcement inquiry by name, confirmed details of it to The Associated Press on Monday.

The Trump administration Justice Department, which shut down the probe, said the matter was “subjected to a full review,” but authorities found “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.” Without providing evidence, the White House criticized the Biden administration investigation as politically motivated.

“The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “As a result, the investigation has been closed.”

Leavitt insisted to reporters during a briefing Monday that Homan “never took the $50,000 you’re referring to,” though she did not elaborate what she meant.

The revelation has sparked fresh concerns about political interference in Justice Department matters at a time Trump’s calls for prosecutions of his adversaries is testing the law enforcement agency’s long tradition of independence when it comes to prosecutorial decision-making. Trump escalated his pressure campaign on the Justice Department over the weekend, publicly calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to move forward with cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff.

“See what happened to Tom Homan, his border czar, who literally accepted a bag of cash —$50,000 — and the investigation was dropped once Trump became president,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said on ABC News. “There are just two standards of justice now in this country. If you are a friend of the president, a loyalist of the president you can get away with nearly anything … but if you are an opponent of the president, you may find yourself in jail.”

Homan came under Justice Department scrutiny after a target of a separate investigation suggested Homan was soliciting bribes, one of the people who confirmed details of the investigation told the AP. A second person said law enforcement officials had had internal discussions dating back to last year about the strength of a potential bribery case and the relevant laws that might come into play.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Homan “has not been involved with any contract award decisions.”

“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,” Jackson said in a statement.

Homan has been a key figure behind Trump’s hardline immigration policies and deportation efforts, serving as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the first Trump administration. Shortly after Trump’s presidential victory in November, the president announced that Homan would serve as “border czar” in the incoming administration.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.