A restaurant take-out bag with $50,000 inside. A former (and future) government official. Allegations of a Department of Justice cover-up. It sounds like a Matt Damon movie, but it’s just another day in 2025.

The Justice Department has halted the investigation of border czar Tom Homan, who MSNBC reported was caught on tape last September accepting a cash payment from FBI agents posing as businessmen seeking government contracts. But that won’t end the matter — nor should it.

Americans deserve to know whether Homan, who styles himself an aggressively by-the-book cop unwilling to look past any immigrant’s slightest infraction, is guilty of soliciting bribes. That’s especially important now, when Homan is poised to oversee a massive expansion of immigration enforcement funding. Homan has denied wrongdoing, but he has not specifically denied taking the money in the sting operation conducted last September.

At the time of the alleged incident, Homan was a private citizen leading a consulting firm. Homan, who had occupied prominent roles at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Barack Obama’s administration and in the first Trump administration, reportedly told the undercover agents that he expected to play a key role in a second Trump administration and could steer border-related government contracts their way. That is according to internal documents reviewed by the MSNBC reporters who broke the story, and multiple figures they interviewed.

The administration has tried to characterize the exchange as entrapment — a weaponized operation designed by a Democratic administration to ensnare one of President Donald Trump’s most trusted advisors on immigration.

But Homan was not the initial target of the FBI’s investigation. He only came into it when agents were alerted to his alleged solicitation of bribes. And the agency was led at the time by Christopher Wray, a Republican whom Trump appointed in his first term. (Wray resigned under pressure from the White House in January and was replaced by Kash Patel on Feb. 20.) Once Homan allegedly took the bribe, there arose an obligation to investigate further. That obligation remains.

House and Senate Democrats are opening separate inquiries, and they are right to do so. Those inquiries should, by all rights, be bipartisan. Congress is charged with oversight of the executive branch. Republicans, however, remain supine, unable to muster the backbone for their most basic check-and-balance duties. They are taking their cues from the White House, which has been vigorous in decrying the reports and the investigation.

News of the FBI’s decision to bury the probe — for “no credible evidence” according to an FBI statement — broke as Trump was claiming credit for firing U.S. Attorney Eric Siebert for failing to find enough evidence to charge one of Trump’s sworn enemies, New York State Attorney General Letitia James. Trump also recently demanded in a social media post that Attorney General Pam Bondi move “now” to prosecute his political adversaries who, he said, “impeached me twice and indicted me (5 times!) over nothing.” Any illusions of an independent Justice Department are being shattered by a president bent on using it as an instrument of retribution.

Congressional Democrats may have trouble picking up where the DOJ left off, because without a majority in either the House or the Senate, they can’t compel testimony or call hearings. Nevertheless, it’s imperative to get to the bottom of what happened here.

Republicans’ “big beautiful” budget reconciliation bill contained an unprecedented amount of money for detaining and deporting immigrants. The immigration agencies carrying out Homan’s orders will get a gusher of new funds washing through them — enough to hire a small army of new officers and pay for countless contracts. Taxpayers deserve to know that those dollars will be well spent.

Homan’s administrative powers are limited, and do not give him direct control over either hiring or vendor contracts. But this is an administration where everything is fungible, and as border czar, Homan’s influence is profound. The details of how the funds will be disbursed remain far too vague, even though months have passed since Congress greenlit that funding.

As a civilian, Homan operated a consulting firm that secured immigration-related government contracts. One of his clients was the GEO Group, a major player in detention facilities and private prisons. After Trump’s November victory, GEO CEO Brian Evans told investors, “We’re looking at a theoretical potential doubling of all our services.” ICE maintained in April — when his connection with GEO was reported by the Washington Post — that Homan “has never been involved in any contract discussions or decisions at ICE since being named border czar.” GEO has not commented. Yet the Department of Homeland Security has recently awarded GEO a number of new contracts, including a 15-year contract for $1 billion announced Feb. 27.

That announcement came shortly after the FBI’s probe was shuttered, according to MSNBC’s reporting. In late January or early February, then-Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told the DOJ he didn’t support the investigation. That was a mistake — a perceived cover-up could result in a much larger scandal.

In December 2024, Homan had told Rolling Stone that as incoming border czar he would recuse himself from decisions on government contracts, “therefore there is no conflict of interest.” The old Cold War phrase “trust but verify” comes to mind.

Instead, we have Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche declaring that the matter has been given a “full review” and “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing” has been found. Case closed, nothing to see here.

That is hardly the transparency Trump promised for the Washington “swamp.” It does nothing to restore the credibility of Homan, the FBI or the Justice Department.

This administration, with its loose ethics and disregard for rules, has not earned that level of trust. Perhaps no administration in recent memory has. Congress should review the pertinent documents, the FBI’s audiotape and bring Homan in for under-oath questioning. What happened to the cash? When did the administration learn of the investigation? What steps have been taken to prevent conflicts of interest?

That’s not a witch hunt. It’s Congress doing the job it is supposed to do.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter.

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