I have spent a month taking a deep dive into the inability—and/or unwillingness—of our Department of Justice to get to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell conspiracy to traffic and abuse young women. You can review those articles here: “The Ghislaine Maxwell/Donald Trump cover-up (Part One),” “Part Two,” “Part Three,” and “Part Four.”
After focusing on what the Department of Justice is not doing, how about we take a look at what they are doing. Unfortunately, it only took a moment or two for me to realize that to survive this brief investigation with my mind intact, I am going to require significant help from a guardian angel. You might not realize this, but asking for divine help is, indeed, a significant concession from one who has quite the miserable track record when it comes to religious observance. Nevertheless, a quick Google search led me to Psalm 91:11 and the following guidance: “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”
I am seriously hoping “all your ways” extends so far as to include my stubborn determination to take a close look at what the Trump administration is doing to us. And I am hoping that amongst the cadre of available angels, there is one particularly experienced in irony. For a sinner like me, it is a crapshoot. So here goes. I know that Luca Giordano never made it past 1705, but like my mother, Luca was Italian and probably would have loved her lasagna. I am hoping he forgives my appropriation of his beautifully painted Guardian Angel for this very short while—and my admittedly impudent decision to rename her “Angel Ironica”:
Quite clearly, the imaginary me that Angel Ironica is guarding has grown quite a bit since our last meeting, my rosy cheeks quite gone now, but with her protection, let me tell you what our FBI and Department of Justice have been up to. Let’s start with the guy who has been rounding up all those “criminal aliens”—the migrants he and his masked ICE agents have scooped up from our farms; home-construction sites; even a factory in Tennessee; or waiting outside their Home Depot to be picked up by contractors; yes, attending amnesty hearings at our courthouses; even dropping their kids off at elementary schools. I am talking about Donald Trump’s Tom Homan.
Now, Angel Ironica suggests a little history might be helpful:
As the UK Independent reminds us, it did not take long for Donald Trump to bring back Tom Homan, once his director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as his border czar. You might remember Donald Trump’s oft-repeated claim that the Biden administration’s open borders had brought our country to ruins—Biden had just about invited every country in the world to empty their prisons and insane asylums, pretty much assuring them that jobs and free medical care were awaiting them in our sanctuary cities. As Donald Trump tells it—and the numbers vary each time he tells the story—up to 25 million thieving rapists departed their caravans and poured across our borders
But we have been assured that if anyone can give us our country back, it is Tom Homan. The Independent writes:
Donald Trump has rehired the highly controversial immigration official Tom Homan, considered one of the key architects of the ‘zero tolerance’ family separation policy during his first administration. The immigration hardliner served as the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between 2017 and 2018. The president-elect wrote on his Truth Social platform overnight that Homan would be in charge of ‘the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security.’
In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security announced “progress in enforcing immigration laws, protecting Americans” and Homan offered ICE’s end-of-year enforcement statistics and declared:
These results are proof of what the men and women of ICE can accomplish when they are empowered to fulfill their mission … We need to confront and address misguided policies and loopholes that only serve as a pull factor for illegal immigration. We must continue to target violent gangs like MS-13, and prevent them from rebuilding what we have begun to dismantle. Finally, we need to find a solution to the dangerous sanctuary city policies and the politicians who needlessly risk innocent lives to protect criminals who are illegally present in the United States.
The report declared:
As directed by presidential executive order, the men and women of ICE began the year with a roadmap of guidance and support to accomplish its homeland security mission. The agency no longer exempts any category of removable aliens from potential enforcement and its efforts are focused on enforcing the law and securing the United States border. While this year’s result reflect a great deal of progress, Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of Director Tom Homan understands there is still much more work to do: ‘Throughout the organization,’ Homan said, ‘our deportation offers and special agents succeeded across a broad range of initiatives and operation. From disrupting and dismantling illegal drug trafficking networks to arresting and removing aliens, including criminals who are too often let back into our communities, our workforce came together in 2017 to do what we do best – enforce the law.’
[Emphasis added.]
As the UK Independent notes:
Homan will be involved in Trump’s stated goal of carrying out the ‘largest deportation operation in American history’ through federal, state, and local law enforcement by invoking the same 1798 law used to carry out mass Japanese internment during the Second World War. Under the separation initiative, immigration officials broke with the longstanding practice of keeping migrant families together and out of detention, instead sending parents to immigration court for removal proceedings and children to the care of a separate agency.
Immigration offenses are considered civil violations, not criminal ones, and many of the families first presented as asylum-seekers, but they were soon on the fast track out of the country. The practice separated at least 5,000 families, many permanently, as parents were sent abroad and the Trump administration initially declined to keep track of where they ended up. As of this May, an estimated 1,400 families remained apart. Trump has been eager to bring Homan, a Project 2025 contributor, back into the fold, telling a radio host during the campaign, ‘He’s coming on board.’
[Emphasis added.]
The thing about Project 2025 is they have been utterly transparent and unapologetic: They know their America is far better than the America of the do-gooders, the woke, ultra-permissive liberals, who choose equal rights, equal protection, choice, and loving members of the same sex, the separation of church and state, while betraying their evangelical duties to Christ and capitalism.
Ultra-conservatives could not have been clearer:
As Semafor explains:
On Monday afternoon, a few blocks from the White House, conservative legal scholars discussed how to strike back against Donald Trump’s enemies. These subversives, they said, had waged ‘lawfare’ against the Republican nominee, thrown out 2020 election challenges, and blocked scrutiny of a Biden administration that might be gone in six months. What could conservatives do about that, if they won back power?
‘We’ve got to start impeaching these judges for acting in such an unbelievably partisan way from the bench,’ said John Eastman, a California attorney who was disbarred last year over working with Trump to challenge the 2020 election.
‘People who have used this tool against people like John or President Trump have to be prosecuted by Republican or conservative DAs in exactly the same way, for exactly the same kinds of things, until they stop,’ said Berkeley Law professor John Yoo.
‘I don’t say that we should be the mafia,’ said Will Chamberlain, a senior counsel at the Article III Project who’d formerly worked for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. ‘But as a political party, if we aren’t willing to dish anything out, then we can just expect to keep taking it.’ …
Trump administration veterans mingled with conservative writers and think tankers who had conquered the old ‘Bush-Romney’ Republican Party. When Joe Biden was mentioned at all, he was a punchline. When Trump was mentioned, he was a conquering hero who’d have a confident, well-trained movement behind him next year. ‘Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen,’ said former ICE director Tom Homan at a panel on immigration policy. ‘They ain’t seen shit yet. Wait until 2025.’
[Emphasis added.]
Tom Homan knows he has been brought back to bring us law and order, and he is completely unapologetic about taking kids from their “illegal” parents. As the Independent reminds us:
When asked in a recent ‘60 Minutes’ interview about whether that operation would entail returning to family separation, Homan suggested it ‘needs to be considered absolutely. Their parent absolutely entered the country illegally, had a child knowing he was in the country illegally,’ Homan explained. ‘So he created that crisis.’
Thomas Homan, the former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, said Thursday that he didn’t care that families were separated under a controversial policy implemented at the southern border. Homan made the comments during a panel talk at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. …
Detained adults who entered with children had those children taken from them, which generated much controversy and criticism because families found difficulty in reconnecting later since the government didn’t have a system in place for reunification. ‘I’m sick and tired of hearing about the family separation,’ Homan said at CPAC. ‘I’m still being sued over that…. I don’t give a s***, right? Bottom line is, we enforced the law.’
Well, just the other day in Leominster, we saw ICE, in a cruel and calculated way, use a father’s love for his child to try and arrest an “illegal alien” who had been here for more than 20 years:
According to NBC Boston:
A Guatemalan family from Leominster, Massachusetts, says federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained their 5-year-old daughter outside their home to pressure her father to surrender. In a recording obtained by Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra, the family’s anguished screams can be heard as they try to recover the girl. ‘He was driving with my daughter when he called me and told me he thought someone was chasing him,’ the girl’s mother said in Spanish.
In the video of the incident, which the family said occurred on Tuesday, the mother can be heard demanding her daughter’s return. ‘They took my daughter, she’s 5 years old. She has autism spectrum,’ the woman says in the video. ‘Give me my daughter back.’ The mother also explained that her daughter’s father ‘managed to run back into the parking lot of my house, but they grabbed the girl.’
The family said ICE agents challenged Edward Hip, a Guatemalan man who has lived in the United States for 22 years, to leave his home for his daughter. ‘Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs,’ an agent can be heard saying in the video, which shows him motioning toward the camera. ‘Hey, I can give it through the door,’ a man is heard saying in response. ‘You can do it right here,’ the agent says, pointing to the ground in front of himself. The mother reported alleged harassment by the officers.
‘They threatened us, saying that if we didn’t open the door within 15 minutes, they would enter the house,’ she told Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra. Leominster police arrived at the scene, recovered the child and returned her to the family.
However, two days later, on Hip’s wife’s birthday, federal agents returned to the house, pulled the man out of the car and arrested him. ‘Officers came out behind my house, arrested him, took him away,’ the mother said. ‘We are not criminals.’
[Emphasis added.]
They may not be criminals, but there is a pretty good chance that Border Czar Tom Homan is. According to Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian of MSNBC:
In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC.
The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said.
It’s unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation. But a Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a ‘deep state’ probe in early 2025 and no further investigative steps were taken, the sources say.
[Emphasis added.]
MSNBC continues:
The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after a subject in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election, according to an internal Justice Department summary of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and people familiar with the case. The U.S. Attorney’s office in the Western District of Texas, working with the FBI, asked the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section to join its ongoing probe … based on evidence of payment from FBI undercover agents in exchange for facilitating future contracts related to border enforcement.’ …
In a statement provided to MSNBC, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, ‘They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed.’
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson slammed the probe as a ‘blatantly political investigation, which found no evidence of illegal activity, is yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country. Tom Homan has not been involved with any contract award decisions. He is a career law enforcement officer and lifelong public servant who is doing a phenomenal job on behalf of President Trump and the country,’ she added on behalf of Homan, a senior White House employee.
Homan did not reply to requests for comment.
MSNBC adds this very interesting fact about yet another one of Donald Trump’s former attorneys:
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, however, in either late January or February 2025, former acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove was briefed on the case and told Justice Department officials he did not support the investigation, according to two people familiar with the case.
Asked about the allegations, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attacked the reporter:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt snapped at a reporter on Monday for asking: ‘I mean, can you just speak to, did the president ask the Justice Department to close the case? And does Homan have to return the $50,000?’ the journalist in question asked Leavitt during a briefing.
‘Well, Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you’re referring to, so you should get your facts straight, number one. Number two, this was another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump’s strongest and most vocal supporters in the midst of a presidential campaign. You had FBI agents going undercover to try and entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position months later,’ answered Leavitt.
‘Mr. Homan did absolutely nothing wrong. And even the president’s Department of Justice, even Kash Patel’s FBI, looked into this just to make sure they had a number of different prosecutors and FBI agents who looked into this,’ she continued. ‘They found zero evidence of illegal activity or criminal wrongdoing. And the White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border.’
Carol Leonnig responded on X a little bit later:
The New York Times adds some additional details:
The cash payment, which was made inside a bag from the food chain Cava, grew out of a long-running counterintelligence investigation that had not been targeting Mr. Homan, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the case.
Mr. Homan’s encounter with the undercover agents, recorded on audiotape, led him to be investigated for potential bribery and other crimes, after he apparently took the money and agreed to help the agents — who were posing as businessmen — secure future government contracts related to border security, the people said.
On September 22, 2025, Homan appeared on Laura Ingraham’s show on FOX News and said:
Look, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal … It’s hit piece after hit piece after hit piece and I’m glad the FBI and DOJ came out and said, you know, said that nothing illegal happened, no criminal activity. You’re talking about a guy who spent 34 years enforcing law. I mean, I left a very successful business that I ran to come back and work for a government again. I’m back on a government paycheck. Not only did I sacrifice, my family sacrifices. I make sacrifices every day. I got more death threats than anybody. I got a security team around me, but guess what? My kids don’t, my wife don’t. I mean, I haven’t lived with my wife in months because I don’t want her to be here right now with all the threats. So, after all the sacrifices, after serving my nation for all these years, they want to come out and dirty me up. And it’s not going to end. There’s a hit piece on me every two weeks. But keep coming, because you know what? Tom Homan isn’t going anywhere, Tom Homan isn’t shutting up, and Tom Homan’s gonna keep doing what he’s doing because working with President Trump is the greatest honor of my life. We’re making this country safer again every day and we’re gonna keep doing it.
Here is attorney Katie Phang, who, until recently, provided legal commentary for MSNBC and now has her own YouTube channel.
After playing the Laura Ingraham interview, she reminded the audience:
Tom Homan never denies taking the money. I mean, I didn’t hear it, and I’m sure you didn’t either. The only thing he said was he’s been cleared by the FBI and by the DOJ under the Trump administration, of course, and that he’s been cleared because he didn’t do anything criminal or illegal. Now, folks, look, we can judge it with our own eyes and with our own ears, can’t we? That was not a denial. Tom Homan didn’t deny taking the $50,000 cash.
And so, of course, the follow-up question we never got from Laura Ingraham, which we all as Americans deserve to hear from our border czar, is the following. ‘So, did you take the $50,000 from the undercover FBI agents? Yes or no.’ And then, depending upon his answer, the follow-up questions should be fairly relevant, logical, and, you know, transparent. But of course, we don’t get transparency from this administration because, gosh forbid, we actually deserve to have an administration that isn’t corrupt, that isn’t a kleptocracy, that isn’t only in it for themselves. God forbid, we actually have an administration that’s looking out for the American people … In fact, we’re having health care and social security and other benefits taken away from us because some people were dumb enough to elect Donald Trump into office. So, Tom Homan again last night, given the chance to be able to deny that he took the money, he didn’t …
I’ll get into the details of how it actually came to pass, this investigation. But they waited, right? They waited for Tom Homan to actually secure his position in the Trump administration for Trump term 2.0. And then they wanted to see what he ended up doing. Now, did he commit crimes already by taking the cash? Yes. But why not wait and see if you can more fully develop other crimes? There is no risk. there is no harm in waiting. In fact, you would think that that’s actually better because knowing Trump’s sycophants, they would accuse um the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI of what? Of rushing to judgment, of trying to pin Tom Homan with a crime when, quote ‘He did nothing wrong.’ Please …
They wanted to see whether Homan would actually deliver on his alleged promises once he became the top immigration official in the United States. But of course, once Donald Trump got into office again in January, not only did the investigation stall, it didn’t go anywhere and eventually the investigation was stopped, terminated. Capito done, right? Kaput. No reasoning has been provided. And as of right now, what is the official party line from the Trump administration? There was no wrongdoing. no wrongdoing.
I’m no lawyer, but I have served on two juries, and I think Mr. Homan’s past history is relevant here:
Newly released disclosure shows Tom Homan previously consulted for the Geo Group, a key contractor in the administration’s mass deportation agenda.
A leader of the Trump administration’s effort to detain and deport millions of immigrants recently earned consulting fees from a detention center company that is expected to benefit financially from the crackdown, according to a federal ethics filing.
Before he joined the administration, border czar Tom Homan earned an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for a division of the Geo Group, one of two companies that operates the vast majority of the nation’s immigrant detention facilities, according to the disclosure, which was released last week.
The filing, which has not been previously reported, did not specify what work Homan performed. The document said Geo paid him more than $5,000 during the two years preceding his government appointment in January. Ethics rules do not require any more specific disclosure, and the amount Homan received could be far higher.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement that Homan abides by ‘the highest ethical standards’ and that he gave up a ‘successful private career’ to work as a high-ranking government official. She cited a statement Homan issued in December in response to reports about his consulting work, in which he said he would recuse himself ‘from any involvement, discussion, input, or decision of any future government contracts that may be awarded.’ …
Nonetheless, Homan’s recent income from Geo raises questions about whether his private-sector work is influencing the administration’s push to round up and deport immigrants — an effort that relies heavily on private detention facility operators that contract with ICE, according to a government ethics expert as well as opponents of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
In his return to government, Homan has championed a dramatic expansion of the nation’s immigrant detention system, which he says needs at least 100,000 beds to accommodate the large numbers of undocumented immigrants the administration plans to deport. ICE’s detention budget allows for 41,500 beds, according to statements by agency officials.
Much of the increased capacity is expected to come through new contracts with Geo and its main competitor, CoreCivic, which together own at least 16 idle facilities that they have said they hope to reopen as immigrant detention centers, according to transcripts of analysts calls, investor filings and contract applications. Already this year, the government has awarded Geo contracts to reopen facilities in New Jersey and Michigan, in deals the company says will generate a combined annual revenue of $130 million.
Here are sections of Tom Homan’s 2025 financial disclosure form, including his consulting work and his work for GEO Care:
There is a lot of money to be made thanks to Donald Trump’s decision to roundup, arrest, and detain millions of immigrants. And, as The Washington Post notes, there is a mutually beneficial relationship between Tom Homan, the Geo Group, and Donald Trump: “The company, which donated $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, has seen its valuation nearly double to $3.8 billion since the election.” And the interrelationship is quite clear:
The website of Homeland Strategic Consulting LLC is currently, conveniently perhaps, under re-construction, but Accountable.us, which describes itself as a “nonpartisan, 501(c)3 organization that shines a light on special interests that too often wield unchecked power and influence in Washington and beyond,” had previously downloaded Homeland’s pitch for new clients. And Homeland Strategic Consulting’s promotional material highlights Tom Homan’s relationship with Donald Trump:
As for potential offences Homan could be charged with, there is 18 U.S. Code § 201 — Bribery of public officials and witnesses:
(a) For the purpose of this section—
(1) the term ‘public official’ means Member of Congress, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, either before or after such official has qualified, or an officer or employee or person acting for or on behalf of the United States, or any department, agency or branch of Government thereof, including the District of Columbia, in any official function, under or by authority of any such department, agency, or branch of Government, or a juror;
(2) the term ‘person who has been selected to be a public official’ means any person who has been nominated or appointed to be a public official, or has been officially informed that such person will be so nominated or appointed; and
(3) the term ‘official act’ means any decision or action on any question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy, which may at any time be pending, or which may by law be brought before any public official, in such official’s official capacity, or in such official’s place of trust or profit.
(b) Whoever—
(1) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent—
(A) to influence any official act; or
(B) to influence such public official or person who has been selected to be a public official to commit or aid in committing, or collude in, or allow, any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud, on the United States; or
(C) to induce such public official or such person who has been selected to be a public official to do or omit to do any act in violation of the lawful duty of such official or person …
Now, of course, with a collaborating Supreme Court that might argue that Homan does not precisely fit that “selected to be a public official” category, nothing is simple here. But, for me, as a potential juror, the combination of Tom Homan’s past track record in the first Trump administration, his consultancy work with the Geo Group, and his repeated public statements about his expectations that he will once again serve in Trump 2.0 made him a likely object for a FBI sting operation. Then, the video tape of the bag with $50,000 he accepted would lead me to conclude that this is yet one more instance when Emil Bove, Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, and Kash Patel ought not to be believed. Their denials ring remarkably hollow.
Thankfully, the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee are more committed to get to the truth than Laura Ingraham:
Washington, D.C. (September 23, 2025)—Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Committee Democrats sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel demanding the release of the explosive recordings that reportedly show White House ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in cash bribes in exchange for steering future government contracts to undercover FBI agents posing as corrupt businessmen.
‘Confirmed by six sources and reportedly captured on recordings now in DOJ and FBI’s possession, this startling episode is powerful evidence that Mr. Homan may have committed multiple federal felonies, including conspiracy to commit bribery. Your reported effort to shut down this investigation appears to be a brazen cover-up to protect Donald Trump’s allies, at a time when the DOJ and FBI are also being ordered to aggressively pursue prosecution of Donald Trump’s political enemies. We demand that both of you immediately turn over all recordings from Mr. Homan’s meeting, as well as all files from this investigation of purported bribery involving Mr. Homan. This is an untenable situation,’ wrote Committee Democrats.
Thus far, the attorney general and FBI director have failed to provide full transparency regarding the Epstein files. Will they once again abandon their commitment to equal justice under law?
It seems to me that they are once again more than willing to replace law and order with lawlessness and disorder. And we and the republic are worse for it.
