Over the weekend we had a confluence of three stories which together illustrate where the federal government is eight months into the second Trump administration. 1. The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was either fired or resigned under pressure (probably the latter) for his refusal/inability to prosecute designated Trump enemies like New York Attorney General Letitia James. 2. We learned that last fall, Tom Homan was the subject of an investigation in which he had accepted a literal bag of $50,000 cash for corrupt actions during the second Trump administration should Trump again be elected. Investigators were waiting to see if Homan, who is now Trump’s border czar, would follow through on those promises once in office. (If you stiff the folks who bribed you it’s still a crime but it’s a lesser offense.) However, the Trump DOJ shut down the investigation. 3. Finally, NOTUS reports this morning that Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section has gone from 36 “experienced attorneys assigned full-time to investigate corrupt politicians and police officers” to two. That’s two as in double of one. The departures are a mix of firings, pressured or forced resignations, resignations on principle and reassignments.
It all adds up to a clear picture. Public corruption work is now defined and determined by the president. The aim is to use use federal prosecution as a weapon against those the president defines as enemies: Letitia James, Lisa Cook, Adam Schiff.
When Cook’s name first popped up as the latest instance in the apparent epidemic of “mortgage fraud” among the president’s foes (or those who simply stand in his path) I assumed, or at least thought there was a decent chance, there must be at least some technical issue with her mortgage paperwork. That’s not the same as being guilty of anything, let alone anyone being able to convict you of anything. Numerous members of the president’s own cabinet had such errors, including his Treasury Secretary. But I thought there was a good chance there was at least some technical error. It turns out there wasn’t even such a technical issue.
Putting the Homan and James stories together it becomes clear why the federal Public Integrity Section has, in effect, been shut down. If your aim is to indict enemies and protect friends, having such an office isn’t just needless; it’s a problem. It’s at best an impediment and complication to indicting foes, if not a total barrier. They’ll ask questions or make trouble like the recently departed U.S. Attorney in Virginia did. They’re also liable to end up indicting friends like Tom Homan. Legitimate prosecutors are quite literally a double threat to the new operation.
It’s worth noting just how damning the report is about Homan. According to the report, first broken by MSNBC, a witness in another investigation said that Homan was taking bribes for favors to be provided in the upcoming Trump administration. The FBI arranged an undercover operation to test out if that might be true. Homan took the $50,000 and promised help with contracts after January. That’s not courtroom proof of the initial allegation. But not only was accepting the money a crime, it means the the witness/tipster was almost certainly right: Homan was soliciting and accepting enough cash that he was getting attention for doing it. Since the bribes probably happened, we have to assume he’s been making good on them since January. (Seriously? What’s the other scenario?) And in the face of all this, the investigation was shut down.
Last summer and fall, the Wall Street-DC nexus was rife with chatter about cash-on-the-barrel deals being made for post-January favors. (Think about who the most Wall Street-proximate appointees are.) At the time, I figured there was likely at least something to this talk. I also knew that without anything specific and concrete to go on, it would be impossible for us to break any of it open. We just don’t know that world. This revelation removes whatever doubt I had.
Some of it isn’t even hidden. How much of this house cleaning was simply to avoid any investigators getting the wrong idea or looking too closely at the Trump family’s various crypto-currency deals? Like I said above, a functioning Public Integrity section is a problem for anyone playing by Trump II rules.
I don’t know whether anyone will ever be indicted for any of this. But this will all eventually come out. People talk, either through loose lips or to settle scores. Occasionally, it could even happen because people don’t like corruption. Or so I’m told. The Homan story is likely just the first of many.