Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding to see the FBI tapes that allegedly capture White House border czar Tom Homan receiving a $50,000 bribe to steer contracts in a sting operation last year that was later killed by the Trump administration.
In a letter to the Department of Justice and FBI late Monday, the 19 Democrats sitting on the committee that oversees those agencies called for a full explanation over how the investigation was scuttled, calling it “a brazen cover-up to protect Donald Trump’s allies.”
Over the weekend, MSNBC reported that federal investigators last year caught wind that Homan, who was expecting a top role in the White House if Trump won, was soliciting payments and promising to hand out contracts upon Trump’s return to the White House. A source familiar with the matter confirmed to NOTUS that Homan was under investigation for allegedly accepting a $50,000 bribe from undercover FBI agents. However, that probe was shut down when Trump officials took over the DOJ.
The Monday letter, signed by House Judiciary Ranking Member Jamie Raskin and 18 other Democrats, went after what it called “the Trump administration’s pattern of abusing its prosecutorial and law enforcement functions.”
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“If this administration’s position to the world is that pre-appointment bribery is now legal, you have just drawn up a blueprint for corruption that would leave all of your predecessors in office aghast,” they wrote.
The Democrats demanded that the DOJ and FBI turn over “any recordings of Mr. Homan accepting money or discussing future federal contracts,” as well as any communications between the White House and relevant federal law enforcement “regarding the decision to close the investigation into Mr. Homan.” Democrats have little power as the minority party — and it’s unlikely any Republican would join their efforts — but Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries pledged on Monday that Democrats were “not going to wait until we take the majority back in November of next year” to investigate Homan.
“We’re going to launch these investigations now and make sure — just as we’ve done in the case of the Epstein files — that we can present the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to the American people, and hold people publicly accountable for their behavior,” he told CNN.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment. Homan said on Fox’s “The Ingraham Angle” on Monday that he “did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal.”
The letter also comes a day after NOTUS revealed how the Trump DOJ has severely cut down the Public Integrity Section that worked on this investigation, shrinking what was a team of 36 attorneys down to only two — an “acting chief” supervising a single lawyer.
Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who now runs a group called Justice Connection to support prosecutors who believe they’ve been punished by the Trump administration, told NOTUS there is a need for “vigorous congressional oversight of the Justice Department now more than ever.”
“They’re brazenly shutting down investigations of the president’s friends while pursuing vindictive prosecutions against his enemies. It’s no wonder they gutted the Public Integrity Section — they apparently have video of the president’s tough-on-crime ‘border czar’ taking a $50,000 bribe. In today’s DOJ, accepting bribes is no longer a crime — if you’re on the right team,” she said.
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