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- [00:01]
Sarah Longwell
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- [00:31]
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- [01:00]
Tim Miller
Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with publisher Sarah Longwell. If we're together on a Saturday night, you know we got a big breaking news story, and we do from our friend Carol Lennig, one of my favorite podcasts, by the way, and she is doing the work over at MSNBC and has this scoop about how Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, accepted $50,000 in bills in cash in an FBI sting operation last September. The gist of the here is that we had FBI officials posing as contractors asking if they could if Homan could help them get government work if Trump was to win again, Homan saying yes and then accepting the cash. All right, so a little more of the details and we'll get Sarah's reaction. The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after the subject of a separate investigation claimed that Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win. The U.S. attorney's office in the Western District, working with the FBI, asked the Justice Department's Public Integrity section to join its ongoing probe into the border czar. And then it was on September 20, with hidden cameras recording the scene at a meeting spot in Texas. Homan accepted 50,000 in bills on top of that. If that corruption isn't bad enough, I guess you shouldn't be surprised by this. The Trump Justice Department shut down the investigation. Sarah, what are your initial reactions here? I mean, in a different administration, Homan would be gone by by sun up. But you know, I think we're going to have a very different outcome here.
- [02:38]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, because clearly they didn't mind shutting down the investor. Like, they knew once they, if they shut this investigation down, it would draw scrutiny. Their response to the scrutiny was.
- [02:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah. The statement from Patel was, this matter originated on the previous administration. They found no credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing. I don't understand how possible, since they have video of him accepting 50 grand in bills.
- [03:01]
Sarah Longwell
Do you know, was it like a bag of cash, like in a paper.
- [03:05]
Tim Miller
Sack says in bills, though? It's like, it's like, you know, a check or something.
- [03:11]
Sarah Longwell
Venmo, each other.
- [03:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And then, then he goes, they found no. And then the department's resources must remain focused on the real threats to the American people. As a result, this investigation has been closed.
- [03:21]
Sarah Longwell
Okay. Can I tell you, though, what the most interesting thing to me is in the piece, which is they got the information from somebody else they were investigating. Now, here's what we know. The reason that this Tom Holman thing happened is that the entire Trump sort of ecosystem around Trump sells influence. There have been other stories about people being investigated. Just quickly, I was trying to look up, I was trying to jog my memory about Jason Miller, because I believe there was some Jason Miller sort of suddenly all their client rosters are very big.
- [03:54]
Tim Miller
And, you know, Jason Miller's taking 100 grand a month from India, I think.
- [03:58]
Sarah Longwell
That's right. That's right. So lots of people who have been informal advisers in and around Trump who maybe aren't in the White House right now. That's the thing. This was before he actually had a White House job, because just what a lot of them were doing was simply selling the fact that they were close to Trump and if he won, they would do right by their clients or they could help their clients out. And it is a lower. It is like the. The downstream corruption of what we see from Trump all the time. Right? Like, whether it is countries that can come bribe Trump, whether it is giving him a J, whether it is big crypto scams, whether it's his kids opening clubs that they, you know, charge these large premium for. And what's insane is that the one scandal of the last administration was the way Hunter Biden used his name to get paid money that he probably wasn't worth to sell his crappy paintings for extra dollars because his last name was Biden. Like, that was the one guy. The entire Trump administration does it. The Trump kids do it. Trump does it. Everybody around him does it. And they are literally getting, I don't know again, what the vehicle was, but, like, sacks of cash. Like, no one even takes real cash anymore. You can't get it. You don't have cash for the cab drivers. You don't have cash bribes. Bribes still come in dollar bills. We have learned well.
- [05:23]
Tim Miller
And crypto. And I think that the interesting thing here, right, is, you know, look, this has been already, in the first nine months, the most corrupt administration. You know, I mean, going back to Harding or whatever, and certainly in our lifetime, by far, there's nothing even comparable to the level of corruption. You know, we. Just this week, I was covering that UAE deal. There's a New York Times story, you know, where this UAE sheik is, you know, getting 2 billion in Trump's stablecoin, and then two weeks later, they're getting AI chips, you know, approved American companies selling them AI chips. Like just an obvious quid pro quo. And the scale of the corruption is huge. The thing is, though, it's been kind of hard to explain. It was something that I brought up on the pot when I was talking about that UAE thing. Like, it takes a little bit to explain. And I feel like some people, regular people, like, as soon as they hear the words crypto, stablecoin, AI chips, it starts to get a little bit like, wa. Okay, this is like, old school. Everybody gets this. Dude got cash. Like, dude got hit in a sting where they're like, hey, I'm going to give you 50 grand if you scratch my back on the back end. And he was like, yes, I will do that. I am corrupt. And so I do wonder if that the simplicity of it is going to mean that there is a greater firestorm around this than there's been around the crypto stuff.
- [06:48]
Sarah Longwell
I definitely think that's possible. Also, I do think the fact that Homan is such a lightning rod, like, if this were just some unnamed member of the Trump administration, people would probably be like, yep, they're all corrupt. But in this case, this guy is, like, one of the biggest villains in the Trump administration. Like, he is the architect of going and yanking people off the streets, of sending people to torture prisons, even when they're innocent. Like, that's this guy. And so Knives will be out for this guy. And. And rightly so. Like, he has been terrible from the beginning. He has never made even an ounce of an attempt to act like he is going to work through the immigration process in sort of a lawful, humane way. He has been clear from the jump he was going to be as inhumane and destructive as possible as he did this. And so, like, it doesn't strike me one Bit that this is not a good person and that it is the kind of person who was taking old school bribes. I just, part of me is like, it is interesting because I think for the way most of the Trump, like world does it is through clients. Like it is, it's sort of like a, it's a grift, but it's, everybody's like, well, Kellyanne Conway has access to the president, so I will pay her to be my pollster. So I can also be invited.
- [08:16]
Tim Miller
Standard DC corruption. Yeah, standard DC swamp. The stuff they ran against. Right. The deeper swamp stuff. But yeah, they're doing all that. But like this is, I mean, again, you know, had, had this administration decided to continue this investigation and had they not whacked it, and then they continue to have a Public Integrity division. I mean, Hillman could go to jail for this. I mean like this type of corruption, like, this is a straight. This is illegal in addition to being corruption. Just. Well, I guess one thing on that really quick. We know this, our viewers know this, but it's just worth saying explicitly. These guys ran on depoliticizing the Justice Department, like based on this premise that Donald Trump was unfairly attacked, et cetera, et cetera. They need to take the politics out of the Justice Department. They all said it, Cash said it, Bondi said it, JD Vance said it in their hearing and their confirmation hearings of the campaign trail and what they are, the contrast and what we've seen with the Biden administration knew this in September of 2020, that he took the cash. Their DOJ didn't say anything.
- [09:14]
Sarah Longwell
They didn't say anything.
- [09:15]
Tim Miller
September 2024, excuse me. And their DOJ didn't say anything. They didn't use it as a campaign issue. I think that's noteworthy. And then we have these guys on the other side shutting down the investigation. It's very similar in that in some ways to your favorite topic, the Epstein cover up. Right. It's just like, it's like these guys are shutting down anything that might bring scrutiny, scrutiny on allies. And on top of that, they're going after foes and they're firing people in the administration that won't go after foes. Like that's the other story that's related to this is this Eastern District of Virginia prosecutor who's getting fired because he won't bring charges against Tish James. So it's just pure politicization of justice all the way down.
- [09:52]
Sarah Longwell
Well, part of it too is speaking about narratives and what's easy for people to understand. Two points on this one is while we have all been sort of in this big debate around Charlie Kirk and all of the different things that have come through it, a lot of insane things have happened while we haven't been paying attention. And I do think it is time to reset our. What we are. A whole bunch of Epstein's emails were released during this last week. There's just been. There's. We still. I think there needs to be a lot more scrutiny on Kash Patel, not just for shutting this down and for covering up the Epstein files and for the fact that my favorite Onion headline of this whole thing was, the Onion has had some really good bangers, but one of them was Cash Patel asks the family of Tyler Robinson if they can help him solve any other crimes. Because, like, he, like he completely botched that investigation. And so we need to get back at looking at Cash Patel because he is part of this. Just in the second point though, you point out about how difficult it is. One of the things that has been a problem for Democrats is they just aren't corrupt enough. Right. Like, and so when you get like one story, like the Hunter Biden story and the laptop story, and it's just. Or you get, you know, Benghazi, like if you can get one centerpiece to really dig your teeth into and pull it apart and examine it from other sides and let right wing media turn it over and over and over again for months, which they will do relentlessly. Got very good commitment to just talking about one story. Trump is so corrupt. The same thing happened when he was being indicted. He had so many indictments, it became difficult for the American people to recognize the different cases against him and for it to all turn into white noise, which is what is happening with the corruption stuff.
- [11:46]
Tim Miller
So I guess my question is, do you think that the Homan thing, because of what we said, because he's already been a villain, because it's very simple to understand. Could play a. I don't. It's so early compared to Benghazi or whatever. Seems silly, but could be the type of thing that draws focus.
- [12:00]
Sarah Longwell
I do. And the reason is, is that I think for all of these things, everybody knows right now, like it is an open secret how corrupt Donald Trump is. But sometimes you need like a grip handle on the whole thing. Right. And I think this could be it. Like a guy with a sweaty wad of bills who's been doing enormous damage since he got into the administration.
- [12:19]
Tim Miller
I agree. Okay, a couple of the reactions. First, I'm gonna go to the good side. The noteworthy side, our boy Connor Lamb in Pennsylvania. If Tom Homan accepted 50k in cash on camera just before the election, as this report indicates, Dems must immediately demand the entire investigative file and not give DOJ another dollar till they get it. Our money is paying for this corruption. I think that's interesting. Aoc on the funny side, who's the illegal now? Real Tom Homan. That's a good post. Shout out aoc. That's a good post. Adam Schiff again to this cover up part. Pam Bondi new cash. Patel new email. Bove new. And they made the investigation go away. I think that that's important to settle on too. Right. Because it's both. Right? It is like it has both and they're both easy to understand. Yeah, right. Like it's like he took 50 grand in cash. They said now we're not going to look into this anymore. Pretty noteworthy. Any. Any reaction? Any that to Connor Lamb's investigation?
- [13:14]
Sarah Longwell
Only have I. This is one of those where, you know, people are like Sarah and her being moderate and whatever. How much do you wish you had Conor Lamb and not Fetterman? I was anti Fetterman from the jump. JBL is trying to talk me into him and boy, do I wish we had Conor Lamb right now.
- [13:33]
Tim Miller
File your Connor Lamb apology form. Any of you Fetterman people out there. I'd like to see it. You can post it in the comments. All right, last one. The worst response is just a totally insane response to this from our friend Megyn Kelly. She posted she can be your friend.
- [13:49]
Sarah Longwell
She's not my friend. She threatened to bully me last time we were in a text and we were in a Twitter exchange, she writes.
- [13:57]
Tim Miller
We do not care. All caps. Don't bother Tom Homan. He's a national treasure. That is the most insane. Or since you don't care about a federal official taking 50 grand in cash and her whole shtick, her whole bit is this media criticism and how the media is in the tank for the left and how they're not serious and we need to care about law and order and all this. And could you imagine the tearful monologue that Megyn Kelly would give about how disappointed she is in George Stephanopoulos if he had tweeted that he doesn't care that a Biden official took 50 grand in cash because he thinks they have good policies? I know it's kind of absurd counterfactual to even say because this is their whole bit, but just to directly be like, no, I don't care if you're good at deporting illegals. You can do whatever you want. You can take bags of cash. We can just become a kleptocracy. I don't actually care about the rule of law. I don't care about democracy. I care about nothing except for the libs crying and deporting people.
- [14:59]
Sarah Longwell
I don't think we took Melania's coat, you know, all those years ago. I don't care. Do you? Literally enough in terms of. Yes, Meghan, we know you don't care about Trump's corruption. We know you've sold out all your principles. You didn't have to tell us you don't care. We know you don't care. The groove that has been, like, struck through the brains of the converted maga, Right? And it is. Is for all of them is just like. Yeah, like. And it's actually interesting because I think for a lot of things over the last week or so, you've seen, like, some halfway attempts to push back on, say, Pam Bondi's obvious misunderstanding around free speech. But of course, they don't push back on Trump. Meghan's just being more honest than the rest of these people who try to, in little individual instances, perk up to say, no, no, no, I still have principles. And so I'm gonna yell at Pam Bondi for a minute on Twitter, but Meghan's being honest. They don't care about the corruption. And so good for you, Meghan. We knew. But I appreciate you saying out loud that this doesn't matter to you.
- [16:03]
Tim Miller
Meghan is making a lot of money. Maybe she should be bribing people in the administration if she doesn't care to get things her way or bribing to get people into the administration or whatever she's got sitting on a lot of cash over there. That is wild. Anyway, okay, well, this is where we're at. It will be interesting to follow this stu over the weekend. Shout out to Carol Lennig. As always, great stuff, great reporting. She's unbelievable. Everybody, subscribe to the feed right here.
- [16:28]
Sarah Longwell
Bye.
- [16:33]
Sherwin Williams Announcer
Shop the Sherwin Williams super sale and get 40% off paints and stains. September 19th through the 24th, with prices starting at 29.39. It's the perfect time to transform your space with color, whether you're looking to revamp your interior or exterior. Exterior, we have you covered with bold hues, soothing neutrals, and everything in between. Visit your neighborhood Sherwin Williams store or shop the sale online. Delivery available on qualifying orders. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only some exclusions apply.
- [17:00]
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