'Lies every day': Leavitt slammed for 'stunning' comment on Trump official

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 22, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Over the weekend, it was reported that one of President Donald Trump's top administration officials accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents last year. And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's explanation is prompting widespread skepticism from journalists and commentators.

MSNBC reported Saturday that in September of 2024, Tom Homan — who is known as Trump's "border czar" — accepted the money at a restaurant in Texas, which was concealed in a Cava food delivery bag. The agents were posing as business executives angling for future government contracts in a second Trump administration. According to Reuters, internal recording of the handoff shows Homan saying he would put the bribe money in a trust until he had completed his service in the administration.

On Monday, a reporter asked Leavitt if Homan should be asked to return the $50,000 bribe. Leavitt snapped that the reporter had her "facts" wrong, asserted that Homan committed no crime and that former President Joe Biden's FBI was simply trying to snag a Trump ally in a federal investigation.

New Republic columnist Greg Sargent called Leavitt's answer "simply stunning," and posited that the administration's true intent was "to erase the very idea of legitimate guilt and innocence." Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) called on Leavitt to "release the tape" of the interaction, along with attorney Scott Greenfield, who tweeted: "Sounds like a good time to release the video then." Journalist Ben Dreyfuss ran with Leavitt's argument, tweeting: "Sounds like the public is entitled to public congressional hearings on the matter. Was the investigation politically motivated? Did he take the money? Let’s get to the bottom of this!"

"It would be extremely unusual if the transaction was not recorded by video or audio by the FBI," attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold tweeted. "If there is no recording, journalists will have to ask what happened to it?"

"It’s tempting to think that the [White House] will look really bad now if tapes are released showing him taking the money, but no," HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Date wrote. "This [White House] cheerfully lies every day and they know that Trump’s cult followers will not care if they proven wrong."

"The country is burning to the ground because the GOP has become a power/grift party," journalist Keith Murphy tweeted. "Once you are able to bury a bribery investigation caught ON TAPE in plain sight, that's the end of a Democratic Republic."

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