President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lee Zeldin, got a grilling in Congress after a smackdown in court that revealed his "fraud" allegations against recipients of a $20 billion grant program for greenhouse gas reductions were smoke and mirrors, Adam Klasfeld wrote for his All Rise News Substack.
Zeldin, like nearly all other Trump agency heads, has tried to purge his federal workforce, and heads up an agency Republicans have historically done their utmost to defang when in power.
"The Trump administration repeatedly has tried to criminally investigate and freeze the assets of recipients of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, created by Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act," wrote Klasfeld. After multiple failed attempts by pro-Trump prosecutors to do so, "Zeldin issued a press release announcing that money already allocated to them by Congress would be terminated out of concern for 'potential fraud,' but the government never produced evidence of fraud in federal court. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan found those grant terminations unlawful in a ruling leading to yesterday’s appellate arguments in the D.C. Circuit."
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In that appellate hearing, Acting Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth told the panel, "To be clear, we're not accusing anyone of fraud," and the suspension of funds was just about mitigating the risk of possible fraud.
But the judges weren't convinced, with Judge Neomi Rao, an infamously hardline right-wing Trump appointee, saying, "Doesn’t the notice of termination accuse — I mean, does it suggest — that the grantees engaged in waste fraud and abuse? Those are the reasons given for the notice of termination.”
All of this led to a hearing this week in Congress, Klasfeld noted, where Zeldin was confronted by Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-CA), who pointed out the Trump administration itself admitted in court that the fraud he has been talking about is speculative.
“You’re alleging criminality,” said Barragán. “You did so in a Fox News interview. You said that’s what the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was.” As Zeldin tried to talk over her, Barragán said, “You shouldn’t be doing that if you cannot proffer the evidence,” and that Congress “is not Fox News. We’re not just going to let you make allegations without that evidence.”
This follows reporting last month that Zeldin was explicitly warned by legal counsel that they had a questionable basis for terminating the grants, and moved forward with it anyway.