Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday morning about what happened to the $50,000 in cash that undercover FBI agents allegedly gave border czar Tom Homan as part of an investigation that grew out of a counterintelligence investigation.
Whitehouse asked Bondi whether the FBI ever got the money back or whether Homan reported the income on his taxes, questions that Bondi deflected by pointing out the investigation was closed.
“What became of the $50,000 in cash that the FBI paid to Mr. Homan in a paper bag?” Whitehouse asked, which led to a long silence in the hearing room.
“Senator, as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche recently stated, the investigation of Mr. Homan was subjected to a full review by the FBI, agents and DOJ prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any wrongdoing,” she said.
“That was not my question. My question was, ‘What became of the $50,000 in cash the FBI delivered evidently in a paper bag to Mr. Homan?’’ Whitehouse asked again.
Bondi told the Rhode Island senator: “I’d look at your facts.”
Whitehouse seemed momentarily confused by the response: “They did not deliver $50,000 in cash to Mr. Homan?”
Bondi reiterated her answer that the Homan investigation was reviewed and officials found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Whitehouse asked if the FBI got the money back and Bondi said he would be welcome to discuss the matter with FBI Director Kash Patel.
MSNBC reported last month that Homan accepted a cash payment in September 2024 as part of an FBI undercover operation conducted after the bureau was given a tip that he was taking kickbacks in exchange for helping companies secure government contracts should President Trump be elected.
Homan has denied any wrongdoing and the White House has backed him, but has also offered shifting accounts of whether he accepted the money.
The White House first did not deny that Homan accepted the money but said he did not have a role in contracting decisions and called the investigation “blatantly political.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt then said Homan did not accept the cash.
Later, in an on Fox News’s “Ingraham Angle,” Homan denied wrongdoing but did not repeat Leavitt’s claim when asked about the money.
“Look, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal,” Homan said.
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