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You are here: Home / Immigration / Border Czar Didn’t Get Normal Background Check

Border Czar Didn’t Get Normal Background Check

December 30, 2025 at 8:44 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“In early January, several days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a Justice Department lawyer passed an envelope across a wide desk to a top Trump transition official. Enclosed was a bombshell, typed up in a one-page summary,” MS NOW reports.

“As he read the contents of the envelope, the official, Emil Bove, closed his eyes and grimaced… It revealed that Tom Homan — at that time, a frequent companion of Trump’s on the campaign trail who had publicly boasted he would be joining Trump’s administration to lead his immigrant deportation strategy — was the subject of an ongoing bribery investigation. Undercover FBI agents posing as private contractors had recorded him accepting $50,000 in cash in exchange for what they believed was Homan’s vow to help get border enforcement contracts in the new Trump administration.”

“A small group of career lawyers at the Justice Department felt an urgency to share this sensitive information with the president-elect’s team as soon as possible, hoping to head off potential embarrassment and a security clearance problem before Trump picked his future Cabinet and top appointees.”

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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