fter nearly a decade of hoaxes — from Russiagate to Ukraine, from impeachment sagas to the circus around Brett Kavanaugh — the American public has been conditioned to expect another “bombshell” headline every few months. Now, right on schedule, a new one has emerged. This time, the target is Tom Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and now the border security czar in the Trump administration.
MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig reported on Saturday that Homan had supposedly been ensnared in a sting operation run by the Biden-era Department of Justice and FBI in 2024. According to their story, undercover FBI agents posed as business executives seeking help in obtaining border security contracts. MSNBC claimed Homan accepted “$50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration.”
Those are MSNBC’s exact words: “indicated he could help.” Not “said,” not “confirmed,” not “promised,” not “agreed.” Just “indicated.” That slipperiness alone should set off alarm bells. In legal and journalistic terms, it means nothing. At its most generous, it could be seen as a subjective impression. More realistically, it appears to be a deliberate attempt to insinuate wrongdoing without citing any evidence.
Tellingly, MSNBC’s story contains no direct quotes from Homan at all. When it references the alleged recording of his interactions with undercover agents, it only says that “hidden cameras [were] recording the scene at a meeting spot in Texas.” There is no transcript, no quotations, and no evidence of what Homan actually said. If Homan had said anything remotely incriminating, MSNBC would right now be airing it on a loop.
Perhaps the most glaring problem with the story is that if Tom Homan really had done anything wrong, why didn’t the Biden DOJ bring charges? This wasn’t Trump’s Justice Department in 2024. It was Merrick Garland’s DOJ and Christopher Wray’s FBI. If they had any evidence that Homan took a bribe or engaged in corruption, they would have prosecuted him instantly and with fanfare, especially given his reputation as one of the toughest immigration enforcers in the country.
Instead, the file was carried over into the Trump administration, where, according to a statement issued by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, it was “subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors” before being closed. That should have been the end of it. Yet someone has now leaked this non-story to MSNBC to create yet another hoax.
Which brings us to the messenger: Ken Dilanian.
Dilanian’s reputation in Washington is notorious. During the Russiagate years, he earned the nickname “Fusion Ken” for his uncanny habit of publishing exactly the kind of stories Fusion GPS, the Clinton-funded smear shop behind the Steele dossier, wanted in print. Discovery in lawsuits after the collapse of the collusion hoax uncovered emails showing Fusion GPS directing journalists to run stories, sometimes even giving them the exact framing to use. While Dilanian’s name did not appear in those specific exchanges, his track record speaks for itself. He was one of the most reliable megaphones for whatever narrative Clinton operatives wanted out there.
And that’s not all. Dilanian also sent draft articles to CIA officials for prepublication approval, even offering to make edits based on the agency’s feedback. In other words, he has literally acted as a mouthpiece for the intelligence community.
Hellbound and Down 