An associate of President Donald Trump’s border czar has been accused of setting up a meeting where his ex-boss allegedly received cash from undercover FBI agents.
Tom Homan was allegedly entangled in the corruption scandal by his former ICE colleague, Julian “Jace” Calderas, MSNBC reported on Monday, citing four sources and an internal DOJ document. Calderas worked with Homan during the Obama administration, according to the report.
Sources told the network that Calderas, the co-owner of a detention services and government contracting firm, proposed a scheme that would have seen Homan paid $1 million to ensure businessmen—who were posing as undercover agents—would be awarded lucrative federal contracts if Trump returned to office in 2025.
Calderas allegedly proposed the scheme in May 2023 and continued to communicate with the phony “businessmen” until they agreed on an in-person meeting on Sept. 20, 2024, MSNBC reports.
That meeting, in Dallas, was where FBI agents allegedly recorded Homan accepting $50,000 in cash inside a Cava restaurant, according to the document viewed by MSNBC and its sources. Calderas was accused of accepting $10,000 in the same meeting, according to MSNBC.
The existence of a defunct FBI probe into Homan was revealed earlier this month, but how the alleged meeting with agents came to fruition had remained a mystery.
Homan has denied any wrongdoing and labeled MSNBC’s initial report about the meeting a “hit piece.” He has not commented on the follow-up report.
The 63-year-old said on Fox News last week, “I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal.”
The Trump administration has ended its investigation into the cash payment, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has characterized the probe as an example of how former President Joe Biden weaponized the DOJ against political enemies to “entrap” them. She added that Homan did not actually accept the bag of cash, but he has yet to deny doing so himself.
FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a rare joint statement last week that prosecutors “found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing” and that the investigation has been “closed.”
Reached by phone about the DOJ document accusing him of wrongdoing, Calderas told MSNBC that he knows “nothing about this.” The Daily Beast was unable to reach him on Monday, and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Homan suggested to Fox News last week that he did not need the alleged bribe money because he was already making a good living as a private contractor. He said he came back to government work to serve his country.
“I left a very successful business that I ran to come back and work for the government again,” he said. “I’m back on the government paycheck. Not only did I sacrifice, my family sacrifices.”
Among those sacrifices, he says, is living away from his wife.
“I haven’t lived with my wife in months because I don’t want her to be here right now with all the threats,” he said last week, referring to death threats.
The post Trump Border Czar’s Own ICE Agent Set Up His FBI Sting appeared first on The Daily Beast.
