The Cava Bag of Corruption

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Follow him on Substack for more by clicking here.

Fifty grand in a Cava bag doesn’t buy lunch; it buys influence, power, and the illusion of law enforcement draped in patriotism.

Close your eyes and picture a scene straight out of Goodfellas. A dusty Texas strip-mall parking lot, a car idling low to the ground, the late September sun cutting long shadows across the asphalt. A man gets out, glances around, and takes a bag from another pair of hands. No ceremony, no hesitation. The bag isn’t from Gucci, or even a briefcase. No — it’s from Cava, a chain that sells Mediterranean bowls. Inside? $50,000 in cash.

That man was Tom Homan; not some fictional henchman or low-level street hustler, but the soon-to-be border czar of the United States. Donald Trump’s immigration enforcer-in-waiting. And yes, the FBI had him on video taking it.

Let’s pause there. $50,000. In cash. In a restaurant takeout bag. Promising to help secure government contracts in a second Trump administration in exchange for the money. This isn’t lobbying, this isn’t influence-peddling; this is the dictionary definition of gangster politics.

And here’s what makes it worse: it happened before Trump won his second term. September 20, 2024 — six weeks before the election. Homan was a private citizen at the time, which gave him just enough legal wiggle room to avoid a straightforward bribery charge. But the intent was there. The promise was there. The tape was there. Federal prosecutors, according to multiple sources, were actively considering conspiracy, bribery, and fraud charges.

Then the election happened. Trump won. Homan was appointed border czar. And just like that, the case evaporated.

The FBI agents who ran the sting knew what they had. An internal case summary laid it out clearly: Homan took the money and agreed to deliver contracts if Trump came back to power. This wasn’t some ambiguous meeting. This was cash-for-favors, caught on film. Four separate sources told MSNBC they believed it was a solid criminal case. The only reason charges didn’t stick immediately was the timing of his status; not yet a government official, not yet able to execute the promise. But everyone involved understood the scheme. The plan was to keep monitoring Homan once he stepped into the administration.

Instead, the moment Trump was back in the White House, the investigation was shut down. A Trump-appointed DOJ official brushed it aside as “baseless.” Kash Patel, now running the FBI, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, both issued statements claiming there was “no credible evidence of wrongdoing.” No credible evidence? What do you call a video of a man pocketing $50,000 in cash and offering government contracts in return? If that isn’t credible, then nothing is.

This isn’t about partisan spin. It’s about the kind of person Tom Homan has always been. Remember, this is the man who built his reputation during Trump’s first term as the face of ICE’s aggressive deportation policies. The man who bragged on Fox News, who promised the “biggest deportation project the U.S. has ever seen.” He loved the image of the tough cop, the no-nonsense border enforcer. But what we’re seeing now strips that image down to what it always was: a performance. Behind the scenes, Homan wasn’t protecting America’s borders. He was selling them off to the highest bidder.

Fifty thousand in a Cava bag may not sound like much compared to the billions swirling through defense contracts and border-wall boondoggles. But the number doesn’t matter; the principle does. That money was a down payment. A test. A handshake sealed in cash. And Homan took it.

Here’s the ugly truth: when people like Homan rise to power, the entire system becomes compromised. It’s not just about whether one contract gets rigged, or one bag of cash changes hands. It’s about the culture it creates; a culture where border policy isn’t driven by security, or humanitarian need, or law. It’s driven by envelopes stuffed with cash. And when the enforcer himself is on tape playing bagman, the whole operation reeks of rot.

What’s most infuriating is the DOJ’s shrug. We’re told they closed the case because “the Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people.” As if a top government appointee being filmed accepting cash to sell access to federal contracts isn’t a threat. As if the corruption at the heart of government isn’t itself one of the gravest threats we face.

This isn’t just sloppy ethics. This is a gangster state at work. Tom Homan wasn’t an unfortunate sideshow; he was the main act, the guy they trusted to run the most consequential deportation machine in American history. And he started his job already compromised, already bought.

So the next time Tom Homan gets on a stage, pounding his fist about “law and order” and wagging his finger at immigrants to “pack their bags,” remember: this guy was literally caught with a bag of cash. And not even a classy bag; not leather, not even a Halliburton briefcase. A damn takeout sack from Cava. That’s the level of respect he had for the office he was angling for.

And yet here we are, watching him run the deportation machine like nothing happened. No shame, no consequences, just a shrug from the Justice Department and a round of applause from Trumpworld. It’s not just corrupt; it’s cartoonish. If Martin Scorsese wrote this script, you’d laugh him out of the room for being too on-the-nose.

But this isn’t a movie. There’s no slow-motion montage where the FBI closes in while the Rolling Stones blare in the background. No cathartic scene where the gangster finally pays the price. Tom Homan isn’t in hiding. He’s in power. He’s driving the car, counting the bodies, and daring anyone to stop him. That bag of cash wasn’t the end of the story; it was the opening credits. And the rest of us? We’re trapped in his mob movie, waiting to see how bloody the next act gets.

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