This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes.
In a sting operation last September, White House “border czar” Tom Homan accepted $50,000 cash in a bag from Cava, the fast casual Mediterranean restaurant chain, from undercover FBI agents whom he believed to be business executives in want of an inside track for government contracts, according to reporting from MSNBC. Homan served as Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Donald Trump’s first term, and at the time of the FBI investigation, he was widely expected to resume oversight of federal immigration policy should Trump reenter office.
Agents, who recorded the entire transaction, had planned to keep monitoring Homan to see if he got the role and followed through on his pay-for-play promise, but now that he’s in position to hold up his end of the bargain, Trump appointees at the FBI and the Department of Justice have squashed the investigation. In a statement provided to MSNBC, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed that their staff reviewed the matter that “originated under the previous administration” and determined there was “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”
The existence of non-criminal reasons for accepting $50,000 in a pita pocket probably comes as a surprise to most normal people. But the Supreme Court is famously fond of bribery, and has made it increasingly difficult to successfully prosecute public corruption. In doing so, the Court has made it increasingly easy for people like Homan to take their alleged bribes to-go.