Offering a new defense of President Trump’s border tsar, Tom Homan, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Monday that Mr. Homan “never” took a $50,000 cash payment from undercover FBI agents. According to a report from MSNBC, Mr. Homan was investigated for possibly taking bribes before Mr. Trump returned to the White House in exchange for awarding government contracts to certain firms. 

The MSNBC report detailed how two FBI agents were involved in paying Mr. Homan $50,000 in cash as part of the investigation. The encounter was reportedly recorded, though no such videotape has been made public thus far. 

When the report was first released on Saturday, no one in the White House, the FBI, or the Department of Justice claimed that the transaction had taken place. Mr. Homan himself in a statement to a local press outlet in upstate New York claimed that there was “nothing to it” with respect to the investigation, though he did not say that he never took the money. 

Ms. Leavitt on Monday asserted that Mr. Homan, in fact, received no cash from undercover agents. 

“Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you’re referring to,” Ms. Leavitt told reporters at the press briefing on Monday after being asked about the probe. “So, you should get your facts straight, number one.”

Ms. Leavitt went on to argue that this reported operation looking to prove Mr. Homan was taking some form of bribes was nothing more than entrapment by President Biden’s Department of Justice. 

“This was another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump’s strongest and most vocal supporters in the midst of a presidential campaign,” Ms. Leavitt said. “You had FBI agents going undercover to try and entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters — someone who [agents] knew very well would be taking a government position months later.”

When asked if it was Mr. Trump himself who ordered the case dismissed, Ms. Leavitt said, “No.” She says there was a review of the investigation before the case was closed. 

“Mr. Homan did absolutely nothing wrong, and even the president’s Department of Justice, even Kash Patel’s FBI looked into this just to make sure they had a number of different prosecutors and FBI agents who looked into this,” the press secretary stated. “They found zero evidence of illegal activity or criminal wrongdoing.”

“The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100 percent,” she added. 

According to his financial disclosure, Mr. Homan earned more than $450,000 in 2023 and 2024 from consulting jobs and speaking engagements. His own consulting firm, Homeland Strategic Consulting LLC, paid him the vast majority of that sum, with $360,000 being paid to him as salary. 

In a statement on Sunday to a reporter for 7News WWNY — a television station in upstate New York near where the border tsar grew up — Mr. Homan said simply that there was nothing to it, though he did not deny that he had taken the money. 

Much of the MAGA world commentariat quickly rallied to Mr. Homan’s defense. Many view him as a hero now that crossings at the southern border have fallen to their lowest levels in years and the rate of deportations has ramped up. 

A conservative podcaster, Megyn Kelly, went so far as to say on behalf of her ideological counterparts: “WE DO NOT CARE.”

“Don’t bother @RealTomHoman,” Ms. Kelly wrote on X Saturday.