White House border czar Tom Homan listens during the swearing in for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Two Trump administration agencies are violating the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to release information about some $50,000 worth of “bribes” accepted by Border Czar Tom Homan, according to a double whammy of federal lawsuits filed Monday.
In a 15-page complaint filed against the Department of Justice and a 14-page complaint filed against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Democracy Defenders Fund accuses both agencies of violating statutory deadlines and unlawfully withholding records.
The lawsuits stem from a September 2025 report by MS Now that Homan was recorded the year before accepting a $50,000 bag of cash from undercover FBI agents, who were pretending to be business executives looking to secure sweetheart government contracts in the event Donald Trump returned to the White House.
“[T]he investigation into Mr. Homan began during the end of the Biden Administration, when a target in a different investigation disclosed that Mr. Homan, who expected an appointment by President Trump, was accepting bribes in exchange for future contracts,” one of the lawsuits explains. “[T]he FBI planned to wait to see whether Mr. Homan would deliver on the promised contracts once he was appointed by President Trump.”
The FBI”s “investigation against Tom Homan was dropped without explanation after the Trump Administration assumed control of the Department of Justice,” one of the lawsuits notes.
As Law&Crime previously reported, once Kash Patel’s FBI and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ took the reins of the corruption probe, the agencies said “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing” was uncovered and the Homan case was closed.
In both lawsuits, the nonprofit group says the agencies have simply taken too long to respond to the FOIA requests.
But that’s not all.
The DOJ-focused lawsuit also claims the agency has “failed to produce responsive records” or explain why such records “cannot be produced because of exemptions” under the FOIA statute — suggesting the agency has such records in its possession but refuses to give them up for one reason or another and refuses to explain why.
Such actions amount to an outright “denial” of the FOIA request, leaving only litigation to enforce the law, the lawsuit claims.
“Defendant is frustrating Plaintiff’s efforts to adequately understand and educate the public regarding the Department of Justice and broader Trump Administration’s efforts to curtail a corruption investigation into Tom Homan, who remains a senior White House adviser currently leading the most prominent components of the President’s domestic agenda,” the DOJ lawsuit reads.
The DHS-focused lawsuit takes a slightly different angle by claiming the agency has “failed to search for records responsive” to the FOIA requests — suggesting a more basic aversion to FOIA requirements.
“Defendant is frustrating Plaintiff’s efforts to adequately understand and educate the public regarding millions of dollars of potentially corrupt contracts,” the DHS lawsuit reads.
Both FOIA requests were filed with the relevant agency on the same day — Feb. 3, 2026 — and contain roughly a page worth of names, descriptions of documents, and relevant custodians.
The DOJ request is specifically tuned toward records of Biden-era case files, law enforcement applications for undercover work — including the application for the stack of cash used in the set-up, interview reports, interrogation records, as well as the resulting communications from DOJ officials under the Trump administration.
The lawsuit describes the general thrust of the request as:
All records related to any investigation or investigations or the potential prosecution by the Department of Justice of Thomas “Tom” Douglas Homan in connection with alleged bribery or violation of any federal law created, collected, stored, and/or reviewed by any current or former employee of the Department of Justice, from January 1, 2024 through the date the search is conducted.
The DHS request is geared toward correspondence, such as emails, chats, and instant messages, as well as meetings, calendar entries, phone calls, travel, events attended, and appointments for a laundry list of Trump administration staff — including visitor logs and ethics determinations.
The DHS lawsuit also clarifies that this request includes personal accounts as well as governmental accounts, personal staff reporting to the custodians and correspondents, and any known aliases or nicknames “as well as their organizational or corporate affiliations.”
The DOJ lawsuit notes some early responses — including acknowledgment of the request by subagencies on three different occasions in February. After that, however, the nonprofit says it had to reach out for a response — after being denied expedited processing — in order to ascertain when, exactly, the subagencies estimated the request would be complete.
One of four subagencies said the request would be completed “within 12 months,” the lawsuit says. The second subagency declined to answer in terms of measurable time but said the request was currently “pending behind 109 other requests.” Finally, the DOJ’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) estimated completion by “November 15, 2027, 650 days from the receipt” of the request. A fourth subagency did not yet respond to the group, the plaintiff says.
The filing puts a fine point on the lengthiest estimate, at length:
To date, Plaintiff has yet to receive any information regarding the state of the search for responsive records. The only information Plaintiff has learned is that OIP believes 650 days is an overly optimistic estimation for how long it should take to disclose information from the Offices of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General regarding what role, if any, they played in clearing the way for Thomas Homan to become a senior adviser to the President less than a year after accepting $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from undercover FBI agents.
The DHS lawsuit posits a bit less attention to detail.
Again, the agency — and the relevant subagencies — acknowledged receipt of the group’s FOIA request, according to the lawsuit.
In terms of responsiveness to the details of the request, however, only Customs and Border Protection (CBP) replied — to say they would be limiting their search to exactly one person in the custodian list, Special Agent Gregory Bovino.
But after that, the agencies have largely been silent or reliant on form letters, according to the lawsuit.
“To date, none of the agencies have made a substantive determination regarding DDF’s request, nor have they provided any responsive documents,” the lawsuit reads. “None of the agencies have made a determination regarding DDF’s request for expedited processing. Only DHS has made a determination regarding DDF’s request for a fee waiver, which the agency granted.”
In each case, the plaintiffs are asking a judge to rule that the agencies violated statutory FOIA deadlines, “wrongfully withheld requested agency documents,” and to issue a permanent injunction directing the defendants to disclose the documents in question. They are also seeking attorneys fees.
