Bondi Dodges Over Whether Trump Border Czar Kept $50,000 in Cash From Alleged Bribe Sting Operation

US Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday dodged questions related to a $50,000 cash bribe that Trump administration official Tom Homan was allegedly caught on video accepting last year.

During testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bondi was grilled by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about the end of the FBI's investigation into Homan, who reportedly accepted a bag containing $50,000 in cash last year from undercover FBI agents whom he believed to be business executives seeking to win contracts under a second Trump administration.

Whitehouse started off by asking Bondi what became of the money that Homan allegedly took from the agents.

Bondi responded by insisting that "the investigation into Mr. Homan was subjected to a full review by the FBI, agents, and DOJ prosecutors," who "found no credible evidence of any wrongdoing."

"That was not my question," Whitehouse shot back. "My question was, what became of the $50,000 in cash that the FBI delivered, evidently in a paper bag, to Mr. Homan?"

"Senator, I'd look at your facts," Bondi replied.

After a brief pause, Whitehouse asked Bondi if she was saying that the FBI didn't actually hand Homan $50,000 in cash.

"Senator, as recently stated, the investigation into Mr. Homan was subjected to a full review," Bondi repeated. "They found no evidence of wrongdoing."

"That's a different question," Whitehouse pressed. "What became of the $50,000. Did the FBI get it back?"

Bondi responded by suggesting the senator "speak to the FBI"—which the attorney general ultimately oversees.

Whitehouse later asked Bondi if Homan kept the $50,000, to which Bondi repeated her assertion that there was no evidence that Homan committed any crime.

"I can see that I’m not going to get a straight answer from you to a very simple question," the senator finally said.

Democrats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives last month announced that they were launching a probe into the US Department of Justice's handling of the Homan probe, and they asked the agency to preserve "any and all records related to the investigation into Mr. Homan and the decision to close the investigation," and to hand over materials including the FBI’s full investigative file and "any recordings of Mr. Homan receiving cash from undercover FBI agents."

Although Democrats as the minority party in Congress lack power to subpoena these files, they do have the option of conducting voluntary interviews with former Biden administration officials who had been briefed about the investigation into Homan.