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Border czar Tom Homan didn't receive normal background check during bribery probe
President-elect Trump initially balked at submitting names of likely nominees to the FBI for background checks, a basic step intended to flag possible financial conflicts or ethical problems.
Link to tweet
https://www.ms.now/news/border-czar-tom-homan-didnt-receive-normal-background-check-during-bribery-probe
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, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
As he read the contents of the envelope, the official, Emil Bove, closed his eyes and grimaced, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. 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. ....
Presidents-elect normally submit to the FBI a lengthy list of likely appointees soon after winning election in November. Incoming presidents have traditionally sought to get an early start on the FBI background checks to better prepare to install their picks for jobs that require Senate approval, security clearances or both.
But Trump’s transition team did not strike an agreement with the FBI to submit a list of appointees until Dec. 3. And only then was a partial list submitted — picks who required Senate confirmation and a few other members of agency landing teams, such as Bove, who would require clearances to be briefed on sensitive agency matters.
Justice Department lawyers felt constrained to only share this information with Trump’s authorized transition team at the Justice Department, and had to wait until Bove, the future acting deputy attorney general, was formally approved for his interim transition post.
As he read the contents of the envelope, the official, Emil Bove, closed his eyes and grimaced, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. 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. ....
Presidents-elect normally submit to the FBI a lengthy list of likely appointees soon after winning election in November. Incoming presidents have traditionally sought to get an early start on the FBI background checks to better prepare to install their picks for jobs that require Senate approval, security clearances or both.
But Trump’s transition team did not strike an agreement with the FBI to submit a list of appointees until Dec. 3. And only then was a partial list submitted — picks who required Senate confirmation and a few other members of agency landing teams, such as Bove, who would require clearances to be briefed on sensitive agency matters.
Justice Department lawyers felt constrained to only share this information with Trump’s authorized transition team at the Justice Department, and had to wait until Bove, the future acting deputy attorney general, was formally approved for his interim transition post.
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