WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin criticized several legacy media outlets on Monday for downplaying key facts related to the agency’s fight to claw back billions of dollars the Biden EPA awarded to green groups loaded with Democrat insiders.
Zeldin criticized The New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico for suggesting to their readers that there is scant “evidence” to support the Trump administration’s argument that billions of taxpayer dollars awarded to groups linked to Democrat insiders can be taken back at the press conference. Zeldin suggested that reporters from certain outlets “are willing to sacrifice [their] own integrity and the integrity of [their] paper to make a claim that there’s no evidence” of potential fraud, abuse or Democrat self-dealing occurring with the Biden EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $20 billion program established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Federal law enforcement authorities are currently investigating the GGRF, and an appeals court intervened on Wednesday to stay a previous court ruling that would have forced the EPA to unfreeze Citibank accounts where the funds are being held. The DCNF has reported extensively on the political connections of people affiliated with GGRF recipient organizations, many of whom formerly worked for the Obama and Biden administrations or have donated to benefit Democratic candidates and organizations.
WATCH:
“There have been requests for funds that come in from these recipients to Citibank, in the hopes that there would be that brief moment where they can get access to their funds, and then as soon as they have access to their funds, clear out as much as they can, which actually only ends up adding to the argument in favor of irreparable harm if that freeze was lifted while going through the appeals process,” Zeldin said in response to a Daily Caller News Foundation question about whether GGRF recipients have been able to access the funding at all since EPA froze the money. “The fact that so much money would instantly go out the door if you lifted it for a second is one of the reasons why the appeals court would be hearing it as quickly as possible. And, you know, we’ll see where the process goes from there, but we’re confident in the argument on the merits.”
Zeldin then proceeded to chide legacy media outlets like the NYT, the Post and Politico for suggesting that the EPA lacks evidence to support its arguments about the GGRF.
“So we come into come into this office, fulfilling our pledge to Congress to get to the bottom of this, and as we overturn different rocks and we find more evidence of waste and abuse, there are some members of the media who have dug in further into saying that there’s no evidence,” Zeldin said. “Every time a new piece of evidence comes out, there’s some in the media saying, even with more conviction, that there’s no evidence.”
Zeldin laid out several pieces of evidence that he believes legacy media outlets are not fairly characterizing. For example, he pointed out how one GGRF recipient received $2 billion in Biden EPA cash in 2024 after managing just $100 in revenue the year prior, how Biden EPA official Jahi Wise appears to have worked on the program that later awarded $5 billion to his former employer, how numerous individuals on the boards of GGRF recipients are veterans of past Democrat administrations and how the Biden EPA amended account control agreements with Citibank just before Inauguration Day, ostensibly to make it harder for the agency to conduct oversight.
“I mean, open question: I know that this was supposed to end here a couple minutes ago,” Zeldin said at the end of the press conference. “I’m getting the high sign, but if anyone can defend please, just like, how is that zero evidence? How is it no evidence? How can any paper … Politico has written it. The Washington Post has written it. The New York Times has written it. Others have written that there’s no evidence, and now we’re all together. I’m glad that we are. It’s April 21, 2025. Why should any story get written after today that says no evidence?”
A NYT reporter in attendance politely responded to Zeldin by asking him to point to any instance in which a judge has agreed with the EPA’s assertions that the GGRF is or may be marred by waste, fraud and abuse. Zeldin responded by pointing out that legal filings from judges in the case have not cited some of the evidence he has identified and amplified, and that his problem is with the language these outlets have used in their GGRF coverage rather than that used by judges.
“So if The New York Times wants to say that there is no evidence, and Politico wants to say it, and Washington Post wants to say it, and others want to say that there’s no evidence, I have a job to make sure that I don’t waste tax dollars, and for people in the media to be willing to sacrifice your own integrity and the integrity of your paper to make a claim that there’s no evidence supporting it,” Zeldin said. “Well, I could stand here before you — and I just went through a list of how many? How many things did I just mention, 10? I don’t know what the list is — and then you’ll go out and write a story saying that there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing.”
“I have a duty to make sure that we don’t light on fire billions of dollars of tax dollars, and I am, as administrator of EPA, not going to stand before any member of the media and get bullied into lighting billions of dollars on fire,” said Zeldin. “And that you’ll continue to write these stories that say that there is no evidence, even though I could stand before you right now and just go through the list, how do you square that?”
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