Trump's border czar skipped background check – so bribery probe went unnoticed

The Department of Justice tried to warn Donald Trump's transition team in the days before his inauguration that one of the president-elect's allies was not suitable for a senior government position, but those detailed and specific concerns were apparently ignored.

A small group of career DOJ lawyers felt an urgency to notify the transition team that Tom Homan, who often campaigned with Trump and publicly boasted that he would lead his mass deportation campaign, was the subject of an ongoing bribery investigation, and MS NOW reported that a top official received that warning.

"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," the network reported. "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," the report added. "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."

The one-page summary revealed that former ICE official Julian Calderas had allegedly told undercover FBI agents in September 2023 that Homan could help them get government contracts in the Trump administration if they paid $1 million to Homan, who then became the subject of an FBI investigation.

"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," MS NOW reported. "It remains unclear how Homan was eventually granted a security clearance, or whom Bove alerted after being briefed on the Homan probe."

Trump initially resisted submitting the names of his likely nominees to the FBI for background checks, making him to first president-elect to resist that security measure, and Homan was announced as his border czar on Nov. 10, 2024, about two months before the transition team was notified of the investigation.

"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," MS NOW reported.

"Trump’s transition team did not strike an agreement with the FBI to submit a list of appointees until Dec. 3," the report added, "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."

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