'The second red flag is even more alarming': Ex-watchdog disturbed by Homan bribery case
A former government watchdog highlighted several red flags in the bribery investigation into President Donald Trump's border czar, who's accused of taking $50,000 from undercover FBI agents he promised to help obtain government contracts.
Investigators were tipped off in summer 2024 that Homan was soliciting bribes ahead of Trump's re-election and set up a sting operation involving FBI agents posing as businessmen, but former inspector general Mark Lee Greenblatt published an op-ed for the New York Times analyzing the probe and its closure earlier this year.
"The first red flag is apparent enough: Mr. Homan and the White House gave inconsistent responses to the allegations," Greenblatt wrote. "Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters that Mr. Homan never took the money — a flat, categorical denial. Mr. Homan has said only that he did nothing wrong and nothing illegal. Notice the difference."
"If Mr. Homan did not accept the bag of cash, why not just say so?" he wrote. "Why fall back on a narrow denial about wrongdoing or illegality? Whose account is more credible?"
Greenblatt, who Trump appointed him inspector general at the Interior Department in 2019 and fired when he returned to office, said Homan matter cried out for independent investigation.
"The second red flag is even more alarming," he wrote. "When Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Homan was under F.B.I. investigation for bribery. And yet he went on to serve as a senior White House official, likely with a high security clearance. How did that happen?"
"Obtaining a security clearance is a rigorous process, particularly for senior officials," Greenblatt added. "Investigators are supposed to scrutinize an applicant’s background, finances and potential vulnerabilities to influence. An active federal investigation for bribery should set off alarm bells, at the very least."
Those allegations appear to have been known to those conducting Homan's clearance and deemed irrelevant, Greenblatt wrote, or there might have been no security evaluation of him at all.
"Both possibilities are extremely troubling," Greenblatt wrote. "Either the security clearance process failed in spectacular fashion or there’s a dangerous gap in the system designed to protect sensitive government information."
The third red flag involved the tax implications of the alleged bribe, because Internal Revenue Service all income, even ill-gotten gains, to be reported for tax purposes.
"It may sound absurd, but it is the law," Greenblatt wrote.
"If Mr. Homan did in fact accept a $50,000 payment, did he report it as income on his taxes?" he added. "If not, that omission could conceivably constitute tax crime, a serious federal offense in its own right. Just ask Al Capone. Did the Justice Department and FBI ever examine the potential tax violations as part of their inquiry? And if not, why not?"