If we’re going through the federal budget in search of areas to cut, I would maybe cut the budget line where we pay Tom Homan $50,000 in cash, consequence-free, to demonstrate that he is susceptible to bribes. I would cut that before the pediatric-cancer research, personally.
Just to explain what happened: Last year Tom Homan, the border czar, was allegedly recorded accepting $50,000 in cash in a bag (specifically, a bag from CAVA, the Mediterranean fast-casual chain) from undercover FBI agents posing as government contractors in a sting operation, in which Homan intimated that he would now try to steer DHS contracts their way. And then they … let him hang onto the cash, to see what he would do with it. Maybe nothing! Maybe report it to the IRS in a really scrupulous way!
When the Trump administration took over, it dropped the case. FBI Director Kash Patel even said that there was “no evidence of wrongdoing.” Homan also denies doing anything wrong. Remember, a wad of money in a weird bag intended for food only looks like a bribe, as a City Hall adviser recently explained. In its proper cultural context, handing someone $50,000 in a CAVA bag is actually a way of saying, “You seem like a man of unimpeachable integrity, and I respect you so much”—and it would be rude to refuse it.
That’s right! Just because someone accepts a bag of cash to steer contracts a certain way doesn’t mean he has done anything wrong. Donald Trump didn’t get where he is today by refusing to take money from people. What, you’re supposed to discriminate against money just because it’s in cash in a CAVA bag, rather than in the form of someone buying your special novelty crypto coin?
Look, Trump officials are being offered all kinds of money from all kinds of sources. Businessmen go to dinner with the president, and then charges against them are dropped. Corporations settle the frivolous lawsuits being brought against them by the president, and then their mergers go through. Clearly, money is a language to which the president and his cronies respond. (It’s always a good sign when the people around your president can reasonably be described as “cronies.”) Well, if we as taxpayers want to influence policy, maybe we should take a page from this same book.
We deserve a piece of the action! The trouble is that it is hard, as individuals, to come up with enough money to swing policy in our preferred direction. What am I going to do, pointedly let a single egg slip out of my purse as the president walks by? (“There’s more where that came from, but I’ll need you to get rid of those tariffs for me first!”) But if we work together, we, as a nation, can probably successfully do a single bribe. Or even multiple bribes! Let’s build on the FBI’s idea. Let’s use our tax dollars to try to bribe Trump-administration officials to act in the national interest!
When RFK Jr. says that he is replacing everyone on the committee that makes vaccine recommendations with a series of alchemists and mountebanks, an FBI agent (acting on our behalf) can say, “But wait! Look what just fell out of my bag! Why yes, it’s a squirrel carcass! But what’s that inside it? Yes, maggots, but also … $50,000 in unmarked bills! Now whom do you want to put on the vaccine committee?” “Hey, Tom Homan, how many bags of CAVA cash do you need to treat other people accused of crimes—and those not even accused of crimes—as human beings instead of dragging them off to a gulag?”
This new system of taxpayer-funded bribes will take a lot of money just to revert things to the status quo, but I am willing to pay. Much better than the current approach, where we silently pay for tank parades, the Army Corps of Engineers adjusting J. D. Vance’s vacation water levels, and the refurbishing of the president’s gift plane—but get nothing in return, except a worse-looking White House and decreased national prestige.
No, I am on board with the concept. My concern is the number: just $50,000 in a CAVA bag? That’s chicken feed. I just don’t think we, the American people, are going to be able to compete with bribes from the private sector.
The post Sure, Let’s Try Bribes! appeared first on The Atlantic.
