Bribery - The Border Czar and the Silence of Justice

It sounds like a plot from a bad political thriller - and yet it is bitter reality: Tom Homan, appointed by Donald Trump as the powerful border czar, was filmed in 2024 by undercover FBI agents as he accepted $50,000 in cash. In return he promised to secure government contracts for the supposed business partners. The scene was so clear, so blatant, that one might think the fate of this man was thereby sealed. But the reality of American power politics writes different rules.

FBI investigators and Justice Department officials had already positioned themselves. They wanted to wait until Homan officially assumed his new role as border czar - to confront him at the decisive moment with the weight of the evidence. The plan was to make the case not only legally airtight but also politically unmistakable. But then the political landscape changed. With Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, the prospect of justice also disappeared. The case, which in any other country would have forced the resignation of a senior official, came to a standstill.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche declared brazenly and without any scruples in a joint statement that the case had begun under the previous administration and had been thoroughly reviewed by FBI investigators as well as Justice Department prosecutors. In the end, they stressed, no credible evidence of criminal conduct had been found. Therefore the scarce resources of the agency had to remain focused on real threats to the public - not on baseless cases. On that basis, the investigation had been officially closed.

Instead of bringing charges, the Trump administration resorted to a familiar pattern: cover up, delay, suffocate. The threads converged in the Justice Department, and suddenly no one seemed interested in clarification. The scandal that could have shaken Trump’s border policy became a file corpse in the archives of an agency whose independence had long since become an illusion. Homan himself has since carried on as if nothing had happened. He gives interviews on “national security,” defends ICE’s deportation campaigns, calls for tougher laws against migrants - and remains silent about the images showing him grabbing cash. For Trump this is not a contradiction but almost proof of loyalty. Those who stand in the dirt and remain silent are in return protected.

This episode once again reveals how Trump’s return has shifted the balance of law and power. Corruption that once destroyed careers is now ignored when it suits political calculation. The border czar who was caught pocketing cash remains in office - not despite, but precisely because of his dependence on the president’s goodwill. And the Justice Department, which should be the guardian of law and order, plays the role of the compliant extra. It is a story that shows how dangerous it becomes when personal loyalty and political power outweigh law and truth. Tom Homan should long since have stood before a court in a functioning system. Instead he stands at the head of an agency that decides over the lives and freedom of countless people - a symbol of how deeply the American rule of law is entangled in the orbit of a president who does not protect borders but crosses them.