Tom Homan and the Bag of Cash: FBI Tape, Denials, Bondi Hearing

In September 2024, FBI agents posing as business executives recorded Tom Homan accepting a bag of cash containing $50,000, delivered in a Cava takeout bag, as part of an undercover bribery investigation. The Trump Justice Department closed the case in 2025 without bringing charges, saying it found “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”¹ Homan denies taking the money, though his denials have shifted over time, and the audio and video recordings of the exchange have not been released. Congressional Democrats and two outside organizations are still trying to force them into public view.

What the FBI Recorded

The investigation began in early 2024, run out of the Western District of Texas. Agents working an unrelated matter learned that Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for help securing future federal contracts, according to House Judiciary Committee Democrats citing internal DOJ documents.² The bureau set up a sting. Undercover agents presented themselves as businessmen interested in landing federal border security contracts if Trump won the November election.

The meeting happened in September 2024. Agents captured it on both audio and video. According to multiple reports, Homan took $50,000 in cash inside a brown paper bag from the restaurant chain Cava, with the understanding he would use his influence to steer contracts to the agents’ companies once a Trump administration took office.³⁴ Homan was a private citizen at the time, running a consulting business. That timing became central to what happened next.

On November 10, 2024, with the FBI investigation still active, Trump named Homan as his choice for border czar.² The transition team did not submit Homan’s name to the FBI for a standard background check until December 2024, roughly a month later than usual, and information about the bribery investigation was reportedly passed to Emil Bove in early January 2025, just days before he became acting deputy attorney general.⁵

Why No Charges Were Brought

The probe was shut down in the first months of the Trump administration. Reporting indicates Bove pushed to close the investigation soon after taking office in early 2025.⁶ FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche later issued a joint statement saying the case had been “subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors” who “found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”¹

The department gave two reasons for not charging. Prosecutors doubted they could prove Homan agreed to a specific official act in exchange for the money, and Homan was not a government official when he took it.⁷ Before the closure, however, federal prosecutors had reportedly been weighing four separate criminal charges, according to Judiciary Committee Democrats.⁸ Some within the department had also questioned whether federal bribery statutes could reach someone not yet in public office.⁹

What Homan and the White House Have Said

Homan’s public account has changed. On Fox News in September 2025, he said, “I did nothing criminal, I did nothing illegal,” and welcomed the DOJ’s statement that “nothing illegal happened.”⁹ He did not, in that appearance, explicitly deny taking the cash.

A month later, on NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” he was more direct: “I didn’t take $50,000 from anybody.” He called the coverage “hit pieces,” said he had recused himself from all contract discussions on entering government, and noted he had taken “a significant, huge pay cut to come back and serve my nation.”¹⁰¹¹

The White House has been similarly uneven. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt first told reporters, “Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you’re referring to,” then walked that back, recasting the episode as “FBI agents going undercover to try and entrap one of the President’s top allies.”⁶ Deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson called the probe a “blatantly political investigation” by the Biden-era DOJ and said Homan “has not been involved with any contract award decisions.”¹

Vice President JD Vance drew the sharpest attention. On ABC’s “This Week” on October 12, 2025, he told George Stephanopoulos, “Tom Homan did not take a bribe.” Pressed on whether Homan had accepted the $50,000 captured on the surveillance tape, Vance said, “Honestly, George, I don’t know the answer to that question. What I do know is that he didn’t violate a crime.”¹²¹³

Bondi Under Oath

Attorney General Pam Bondi faced repeated questions about the bag of cash during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on October 7, 2025. Senator Adam Schiff asked what happened to the $50,000 and whether Bondi would support releasing the recordings. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked whether Homan had declared the money on his tax returns. Senators Alex Padilla, Mazie Hirono, and Peter Welch pressed her to confirm that audio and video of the transaction exist.¹⁴

Bondi declined to engage on any of it. She said the case “was resolved prior to my confirmation” and directed senators to Patel and Blanche. The hearing turned combative. To Welch, she said, “Don’t call me a liar!” and “You’re not going to sit here and slander Tom Homan.” To Schiff: “If you worked for me, you would have been fired.”¹⁴¹⁵ She committed to no investigation, no action, and no recusal.

Who Is Still Trying to Get the Tape

House Judiciary Committee Democrats pressed the matter through oversight letters. In late September 2025, Representatives Jamie Raskin and Eric Swalwell wrote to Bondi and Patel demanding release of the recordings and an explanation for closing the case. The committee reports no response.⁸

On October 8, 2025, Representatives Zoe Lofgren, Raskin, Dan Goldman, and Swalwell widened the inquiry with a letter to Stanley Woodward, who had led the Trump-Vance DOJ Transition Team and later became Associate Attorney General. The letter asked when the transition team learned of the investigation, why Homan was appointed anyway, who ordered the case closed, whether the $50,000 was declared on Homan’s taxes, and where the money is now. It set an October 22, 2025, deadline for documents.¹⁶¹⁷ No public response from Woodward has been reported.

On February 2, 2026, Senator Jacky Rosen wrote to Deputy Inspector General William Blier requesting a “robust investigation” into Homan’s acceptance of the payment, the DOJ’s handling of the case, and how the $50,000 was used. Rosen said it was “deeply concerning that DOJ dismissed this case with very little explanation.”¹⁸ As of mid-2026, the Inspector General’s office had not publicly responded.

Two organizations have gone to court. Democracy Forward Foundation filed a FOIA lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on October 23, 2025, seeking release of non-exempt portions of the recording.¹⁹ The case, before Judge Carl J. Nichols, remains open.²⁰ The Democracy Defenders Fund filed a separate FOIA request in September 2025 that the FBI denied in January 2026 on privacy grounds; the group sued in D.C. District Court on February 17, 2026, and filed two additional suits against the DOJ and DHS on March 30, 2026.²¹ One DOJ subagency estimated it would not finish processing records until November 2027.²²

The Consulting Business That Sets the Backdrop

The bribery sting fits inside a specific business context. Before returning to government, Homan ran Homeland Strategic Consulting, incorporated in Virginia in May 2018, which helped companies win federal contracts in immigration enforcement and border security. The firm’s website previously described its work as “opening doors and bringing successful relationships to our clients, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts to private companies.”²³ Clients included Fisher Sand and Gravel, USA Up Star, SE&M Solutions, and the private prison operator GEO Group. On becoming border czar, Homan said he would recuse himself from “involvement, discussion, input, or decision of any future government contracts.”²⁴

Where Things Stand

Homan continues to serve as White House border czar as of mid-2026, advising the president and the Department of Homeland Security and acting as the administration’s chief negotiator with Democratic state and local officials on enforcement operations.²⁵ What became of the $50,000 has not been publicly explained. The recordings remain sealed. The FOIA lawsuits are still moving through federal court.

1
Politico. Tom Homan Department of Justice Investigation
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U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democrats. Judiciary Democrats Press Trump-Vance Transition Team on Homan Bribery Scandal
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ABC News. DOJ Ended Probe Into Border Czar Tom Homan
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U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen. Rosen Calls on DOJ Inspector General to Investigate Tom Homan
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The Independent. Trump Tom Homan Bribery Background
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U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democrats. Judiciary Democrats Press Trump-Vance Transition Team on Homan Bribery Scandal
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CNN. Tom Homan Investigation Closed
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U.S. Senator Peter Welch. Senators Grill Pam Bondi Over FBI’s Alleged $50,000 Tom Homan Bribe
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