In early January, several days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a Justice Department lawyer passed an envelope across a wide desk to a top Trump transition official. Enclosed was a bombshell, typed up in a one-page summary, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
As he read the contents of the envelope, the official, Emil Bove, closed his eyes and grimaced, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. It revealed that Tom Homan — at that time, a frequent companion of Trump’s on the campaign trail who had publicly boasted he would be joining Trump’s administration to lead his immigrant deportation strategy — was the subject of an ongoing bribery investigation. Undercover FBI agents posing as private contractors had recorded him accepting $50,000 in cash in exchange for what they believed was Homan’s vow to help get border enforcement contracts in the new Trump administration.
A small group of career lawyers at the Justice Department felt an urgency to share this sensitive information with the president-elect’s team as soon as possible, hoping to head off potential embarrassment and a security clearance problem before Trump picked his future Cabinet and top appointees.
Justice officials felt sure Homan would not be able to obtain a security clearance based on the evidence gathered in the corruption probe.
Justice officials felt sure Homan would not be able to obtain a security clearance based on the evidence gathered in the corruption probe, which they and FBI agents believed had shown Homan unsuitable for a trusted senior role in government service, according to the sources. It remains unclear how Homan was eventually granted a security clearance, or whom Bove alerted after being briefed on the Homan probe.
The undercover probe was first reported by MS NOW in September.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson declined to answer MS NOW’s questions about the Trump transition official being briefed on the Homan probe and how Homan was able to obtain his clearance, but accused MS NOW of seeking to “resurrect a story that has already been thoroughly debunked.”
“This was a blatantly political investigation, that found no evidence of illegal activity, and was 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. “Tom Homan is a career law enforcement officer and lifelong public servant who is doing a phenomenal job on behalf of President Trump and the country.”
As Trump approached his return to the White House, he initially balked at submitting names of likely nominees to the FBI for background checks. That made him the first president-elect to resist this basic step, which is intended to flag possible financial conflicts or ethical problems. Without the benefit of a background check to alert Trump’s team to the ongoing investigation of Homan, Trump on Nov. 10 publicly announced Homan as his new border czar, a senior White House advisor position.
Instead, this lightning bolt of worrisome information reached Bove, Trump’s point man at the Justice Department, very late in Trump’s process of shaping the future administration — and far outside the norm for reporting significant red flags about prospective aides to the incoming president.
Presidents-elect normally submit to the FBI a lengthy list of likely appointees soon after winning election in November. Incoming presidents have traditionally sought to get an early start on the FBI background checks to better prepare to install their picks for jobs that require Senate approval, security clearances or both.
But Trump’s transition team did not strike an agreement with the FBI to submit a list of appointees until Dec. 3. And only then was a partial list submitted — picks who required Senate confirmation and a few other members of agency landing teams, such as Bove, who would require clearances to be briefed on sensitive agency matters.
Justice Department lawyers felt constrained to only share this information with Trump’s authorized transition team at the Justice Department, and had to wait until Bove, the future acting deputy attorney general, was formally approved for his interim transition post.
As the one-page summary spelled out to Bove, the FBI had turned to investigate Homan in early 2024, as a result of a separate investigation. The subject of that probe, a Homan associate and former ICE official named Julian Calderas, had allegedly told undercover FBI agents that Homan could get them help with government contracts in the Trump administration — for a fee. Calderas proposed to the undercover agents in September 2023 that they pay Homan $1 million in exchange for Homan’s help in winning a lucrative stream of government business, according to sources briefed on the probe and an internal Justice Department document describing the investigation reviewed by MS NOW. After a series of follow-up conversations and meetings, the undercover FBI agents met with Homan and Calderas in Texas on Sept. 20, 2024, the internal document shows. Calderas accepted $10,000 in cash from the agents and Homan took $50,000 in cash. Sources told MS NOW that the agents recorded the men accepting the money in paper bags. A source briefed on the meeting said the money for Homan was placed in a bright yellow bag from CAVA, the fast-casual chain specializing in Mediterranean fare, and one of the undercover agents remarked to Homan as he made the hand off: “We both know there’s no CAVA in that bag.” A source briefed on the meeting said the money for Homan was placed in a bright yellow bag from CAVA, the fast-casual chain specializing in Mediterranean fare. Prosecutors and FBI agents in the Western District of Texas had been running the probe, and asked the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, where a team of lawyers specialize in public corruption, to join their investigation on Nov. 25, 2024, after Trump named Homan to a public post. The Public Integrity Section agreed, but assigned a senior supervisor, Rob Heberle, to monitor this sensitive case rather than a line attorney in the office, an internal record shows. The federal prosecutorial team’s thinking was they would continue to monitor Homan and investigate whether he took steps in public office to confirm this illicit scheme or to take steps to help influence contract decisions to benefit the undercover agents’ faux business. If they found such evidence, they told one another they felt they would have a substantial case to charge him with bribery. FBI Director Kash Patel was briefed on the investigation soon after being confirmed for his post, according to the two sources. Both Patel and Bove registered their displeasure with the investigation and the case stalled out, without taking any more formal investigative steps. After Patel sought an update briefing this summer, the FBI closed the investigation. As MS NOW prepared to break the news of the bribery probe, Homan did not respond to requests for comment and the White House said the investigation began under the Biden administration and Trump appointees concluded it was politically motivated. A day later, in an interview on FOX News, Homan told anchor Laura Ingram: “I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal,” but stopped short of saying he did not take any cash. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a White House briefing that “Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you’re referring to” despite an internal DOJ document stating that he did.
Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW. Recommended
