The CBS News program “60 Minutes” knew a married father of two had claimed he was gay on immigration paperwork in an apparent attempt to avoid deportation, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. The disclosure raises an obvious question about what the program chose not to tell viewers, as reported by The New York Post.

A DHS spokesperson told The Post on Tuesday that the program received information about Moussa Diawara’s seemingly fraudulent sexuality claims a full two weeks before Sunday’s segment aired. Even so, the broadcast did not mention the claim from his 2012 asylum application.

Diawara is married to a woman, but his immigration documents invoked his alleged homosexuality as a reason he could not be returned to his native Mali. The application cited concerns about discrimination if he were deported.

That information was nowhere to be found in the “60 Minutes” segment, despite the program having been informed about it in advance, according to the DHS spokesperson. Instead, the broadcast presented another explanation for Diawara’s fear of returning to Mali.

“60 Minutes” reported that Diawara insisted he could not be sent back because he had converted to Christianity. He said he feared religious persecution in Mali, which the source described as a majority Muslim country.

A representative for the show did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment Tuesday. The program therefore offered no immediate explanation for why the sexuality claim was omitted from the broadcast.

Diawara was deported to Ghana in July, more than a decade after he overstayed a tourist visa. He had claimed refugee status that prevented authorities from sending him back to Mali.

After the segment aired, DHS General Counsel James Percival said he reviewed Diawara’s immigration file. Percival then revealed what he said he found in an X post.

Percival wrote that “his claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is ‘gay,’ just in case you’re wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is.”

Fox News obtained Diawara’s asylum application, which contained detailed statements about his claimed sexuality. The document offered a striking contrast with the description of Diawara as a married father featured by CBS News.

“Since I came to the USA, I had the possibilities to express my feelings to men without any embarrassment [and] no reserve.”

Diawara also wrote, “Although I was born as a boy, but things appeared differently for me as I was already having female behaviors and feelings.” He continued, “I was more comfortable being intimate with boys rather than with girls.”

Those statements appeared in the 2012 immigration filing, according to the source. DHS maintained that “60 Minutes” had been notified about the claims two weeks before airing its report but left them out of the segment.

The broadcast instead focused on Diawara’s account of what happened after his July deportation to Ghana. Diawara alleged that authorities there forced him onto a flight to Mali within days of his arrival in the West African country.

Diawara subsequently fled Mali and now lives in an undisclosed country, according to “60 Minutes.” The program did not reveal his current location.

CBS News described Diawara as a “Texas dad,” while discussing his wife and family circumstances. The segment still made no mention of the statements about intimacy with men that appeared in his asylum application.

The competing accounts leave a substantial gap in the story presented to viewers. “60 Minutes” emphasized Diawara’s stated fear of religious persecution, while DHS said his immigration file identified being gay as his claimed reason for fearing Mali.

According to the DHS spokesperson, that gap was not caused by a lack of notice. The program had the information for two full weeks before choosing to run the segment without mentioning it.

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