The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly probing a massive Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program for possible fraud, EPA officials confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Specifically, FBI agents reportedly interviewed EPA employees this week as part of an escalating investigation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $20 billion program that awarded billions of dollars to green groups loaded with Democrat donors and insiders, the Washington Post first reported Friday citing anonymous sources familiar with the situation so that they could speak freely. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has repeatedly expressed concern about the GGRF abusing taxpayer dollars to benefit friends of the Biden EPA, though some career federal prosecutors have shied away from advancing the investigation when called upon to do so.
The DCNF has reported extensively on the political connections of GGRF awardees since November 2023.
Zeldin has said that he will attempt to pull back as much of the GGRF cash as possible, and President Donald Trump campaigned aggressively against the Biden administration’s excessive green spending on his way back to the White House. The Trump EPA has cited a December 2024 video from Project Veritas, a conservative activist group, in which a Biden EPA employee tells an undercover Project Veritas employee that the agency’s rush to push funding out in the administration’s final days was “like we’re on the Titanic and we’re throwing, like, gold bars off the edge.”
The Biden EPA parked the $20 billion at Citibank before being replaced by Trump administration personnel, and GGRF recipients say they are unable to make withdrawals from the bank, according to the Post. Meanwhile, the EPA’s acting inspector general, Nicole Murley, testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill that her office is examining the GGRF and that there are concerns the Biden EPA’s late rush to get funding out the door may have impacted the screening process for potential recipients, for example.
The FBI contacted Brent Efron, the EPA official in the Project Veritas video, on Monday, and the EPA inspector general’s office has also made contact, according to the Post. Mark Zaid, Efron’s attorney, told the Post that Efron “doesn’t know what this is about, and that he was never involved in the obligation or disbursement of funds from any EPA assistance program” and that Efron “was not involved in any conversations about EPA and Citibank.”
The EPA and Department of Justice did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
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