President Trump’s friends and allies — many of whom are headed to Charlie Kirk’s memorial in Arizona on Sunday — are not even taking the time to debate the allegation that border tsar Tom Homan took a $50,000 bribe from undercover FBI agents. Instead, they are chalking it up to more Justice Department targeting of conservatives, and quickly moving on. 

On Saturday, MSNBC reported that the FBI opened an investigation into Mr. Homan last year after a source told them that the longtime immigration enforcement official was taking cash bribes in exchange for promises that he could secure government contracts for people once Mr. Trump returned to power. 

Late last year, Mr. Homan allegedly accepted $50,000 stuffed into a takeout bag from the CAVA restaurant chain from two undercover FBI agents masquerading as business executives. MSNBC reports that the agents were waiting to see if Mr. Homan would follow through on his promise to deliver contracts before moving the investigation forward. 

“We DO NOT CARE. Don’t bother @RealTomHoman,” conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly wrote on X in response to the news. 

The White House similarly bashed the probe as politically motivated. Deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson told MSNBC that the investigation “found no evidence of illegal activity” and is nothing more than “another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country.”

Mr. Homan himself addressed the allegations in remarks to 7News WWNY, a television station in upstate New York, where Mr. Homan grew up. “Nothing to it,” the border tsar told a reporter of the MSNBC article. 

Conservative writer and lawyer Andy McCarthy — whom Mr. Trump has praised effusively in the past — argues that the Justice Department’s reported consideration of a conspiracy to commit bribery charge against Mr. Homan may have been out-of-bounds. 

“You can’t conspire with a government undercover agent. There has to be at least one other non-government operative in a criminal agreement, otherwise no conspiracy,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on X about the investigation into Mr. Homan. 

The FBI director, Kash Patel, and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said simply in a statement to MSNBC that they came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. 

“This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing,” they said. “The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations.”

Democrats were quick to jump on the story, even though conservatives showed little appetite for engaging beyond denouncing the investigation. Senator Chris Murphy argued on ABC News’s “This Week” that this is just another example of Mr. Trump picking and choosing who will face punishment based on their perceived loyalty. 

Mr. Murphy also cited the recent dismissal of a federal prosecutor in Virginia who failed to bring criminal charges against New York state attorney general Letitia James. 

“See what happened to Tom Homan — his border tsar — who literally accepted a bag of cash … and the investigation was dropped,” Mr. Murphy said. “There are just two standards of justice now, in this country. If you are a friend of the president — a loyalist of the president — you can get away with nearly anything.”