The FBI reportedly has launched an investigation into Environmental Protection Agency grants totaling $20 billion under then-President Joe Biden.
A Trump-appointed U.S. attorney submitted a warrant request after DOJ career prosecutors were unwilling to do so, The Washington Post reported Thursday night.
The outlet said FBI agents this week questioned EPA employees regarding a Biden administration grant program for climate and clean-energy projects.
One source told the outlet that agents sought information regarding spending under the National Clean Investment Fund and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator programs, which seek to finance clean-technology and clean-energy projects.
"Per our usual policy, the department declines to confirm or deny the existence of an ongoing investigation," a DOJ spokesperson told the Post.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin took to social media Feb. 12 to say the Biden administration stashed $20 billion dollars at an outside bank to give to select recipients, such as a climate group connected to former Georgia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
The grants were issued under Biden's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program established in the 2022 climate law.
GGRF seeks to invest in clean-energy technologies such as solar panels, heat pumps, and more, including through community lenders in low-income areas, the Post reported.
"When we learned about the Biden administration's scheme to quickly park $20 billion outside the agency, we suspected that some organizations were created out of thin air just to take advantage of this," an EPA spokesperson said. "As we continue to learn more about where some of this money went, it is even more apparent how far-reaching and widely accepted this waste and abuse has been."
Zeldin has said the agency would try to claw back the money from Citibank, which disbursed the funds.
At least three groups awarded money told the Post their accounts had been frozen, and the bank won't say why.
Senate Democrats on the Senate environment and public works committee on Monday asked Zeldin to end his campaign to claw back funds, saying that effort is illegal.
Sources told the Post that a senior career prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. resigned rather than carry out the demand to freeze the funds over possible wire fraud. At least one other U.S. attorney's office in the southeastern U.S. refused to launch a grand jury investigation in the case.