FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money
56 comments
·March 14, 2025npvrite
haliskerbas
The hero and godking of many on this very forum, Elon Musk is supposedly doing that.
viraptor
Legal eagle did a good video with lots of context about this mess: https://youtu.be/5KApz1PdBgA
kelnos
TFA links to what I think is a much more informative article: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/judge-epa-climate-g...
sharemywin
“Can you proffer any evidence that [the grant] was illegal, or evidence of abuse or fraud or bribery — that any of that was improperly or unlawfully done, other than the fact that Mr. Zeldin doesn’t like it?” Judge Tanya Chutkan said.
Judge Chutkan also ordered the Justice Department to provide the court with details about the alleged fraud, “because I don’t have the credible evidence that’s required.”
This whole calling things fraud without actually have any evidence is really starting to get old.
wenwolf
The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury.
jmward01
A weaponized justice department requires the judiciary to respond in kind.
wenwolf
Personally, I've considered the problem to be a long term one and fixing it as a possible silver lining. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a pessimist about the integrity of the American people. I was wrong about what would happen with the first Black President, I was sure the racism was going to have a silver lining of cutting down the POTUS and not allowing a show like this. But the POTUS office is still the reason the US will kill itself at a minimum. (Nothing good can go unpunished?)
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thaumasiotes
> The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury.
Is that a thing judges can do? They can imprison you for contempt of court; wouldn't perjury need a prosecutor?
gamblor956
The judge can request that the lawyers involved lose their admission to practice in federal court for serious ethical violations like the ones here.
However, this very rarely happens except in the most egregious cases where the lawyer is usually also disbarred for their conduct (i.e., Guiliani) so it's not a meaningful disciplinary measure.
dghlsakjg
Is it just custom not to exercise it?
Why do these judges allow people to show up to court and make exceptionally stupid arguments?
jonstewart
Funnily enough, a Trump crony is running to head the DC bar…
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-...
9283409232
Some information from the linked document about the non-profits that are being targeted.
> 2. Conflicts of Interest and Political Favoritism
> A $2 billion grant was awarded to Power Forward Communities, a new nonprofit with ties to Stacey Abrams, despite reporting only $100 in total revenue in 2023
> Young, Gifted & Green was awarded $20 million, even though its CEO applied for funding while serving on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
The balls for this administration to attempt to call out other people on conflicts of interest and political favoritism is crazy.
narutosasuke
Power Forward Communities: A coalition of five nonprofit organizations — Enterprise Community Partners, Habitat for Humanity International, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Rewiring America and United Way Worldwide.
Abrams' connection to Power Forward Communities, is through Rewiring America, one of the five organizations that leads the program.
That seems pretty weak. No idea what the other group is but I mean if the above is what's being lead with, I don't find myself concerned. Looks more like working your way backwards from "I don't want this money spent so I will find whatever connection I can to corruption"
9283409232
That is McCarthyism[1] in a nutshell. You find someone or something you don't like then work backwards.
llamaimperative
“Ties to Stacey Abrams”, by the way, is that she is an advisor to one of the five organizations that founded Power Forward Communities…
I.e. that a community organizer was involved in a community organization…
crypto_is_king
[flagged]
fabian2k
I don't think you can reasonably expect the claims by this administration to be true. There are far too many examples where they claimed fraud without any evidence.
tokioyoyo
My take is, either everyone should be allowed to scam, or nobody. It sounds very stupid, but I don’t like it when people in power give preference to their own scams.
Obviously I want no scams, but the US has chosen administration that is ok with insider scams. So as an outsider, I’d rather see equality instead.
koolba
[flagged]
epgui
What do you think the word “scam” means?
kelnos
I don't think GP said that. Please don't put words in people's mouths.
londons_explore
Both sides of the political divide attempt to funnel taxpayers money into their own interests, which are often thinly veiled ways to get taxpayer money into their own pockets. This is nothing new.
Whenever there is a change of admin, the new admin attempts to claw back or redirect money the old admin directed to their own pockets. This is also nothing new.
What's new this year is people are talking about it.
llamaimperative
If both sides do it, then they should be able to publish better evidence than Stacey Abrams’ “ties” to Power Forward Communities.
The fact that all the DOGE and DOGE-adjacent claims of fraud have been so shamefully weak has actually reduced my confidence that the alleged behavior is actually widespread at all.
9283409232
What evidence do you have of Biden clawing taxpayer money back from Trump's friends?
Huntsecker
daily stories coming from the US are pretty crazy, FBI being used as a tool to try and revert something from under the previous administration. Feels like whatever balances and checks that should be in place to stop an autocracy are missing
kayodelycaon
In theory, congress can remove a president. Start placing your bets! Does he get removed before he dissolves congress? :)
I’m only partial joking. The check and balances in the country won’t work if half the population wants to replace democracy with theocracy.
alienthrowaway
> In theory, congress can remove a president
In practice, the president is threatening to remove any Republican member of congress who crosses him by supporting a primary challenger.
fransje26
> The check and balances in the country won’t work if half the population wants to replace democracy with theocracy.
It looks like this entire nonsense is heavily going to hurt the wallets of more than half of the population. So why would they be so keen to vote for a theocracy?
Although at this stage I also wouldn't put it past the clowns in power to actively tamper with elections to get the results they want.
chaos_agent
[dead]
Alupis
[flagged]
MostlyStable
Congress voluntarily giving up its powers to the executive branch [0] (unfortunately not new, but worsening), isn't exactly Democracy failing, but it's certainly a breakdown of the system of checks and balances upon which our Federal government was conceived, and is most definitely not "how things are supposed to work".
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/house-republicans-block-con...
a4aur5uiu
He's literally dissolving, dismantling, and undermining the systems that you're claiming are "working". And federal judges are deciding cases along strict party lines, which is a pretty clear demonstration that they're utterly ignoring the actual written words of the law. And Congress has completely given away their intended control of federal spending. So let's cut the shit. You like Trump and you want this to continue. Don't lie to me and tell me you believe one single word of the mental diarrhea that you just wrote.
It's like we're standing on the street watching a building burn down and you're saying "look the sprinklers are on, this is how it's supposed to happen". No one is stupid enough to say what you're saying and actually believe it. So clearly you're just lying.
accrual
I hope it leads to stronger checks and balances.
not2b
A president can revert an executive order from the previous administration. But the Inflation Reduction Act is a law, not an executive order. If Trump doesn't like it, he can get Congress to repeal it. But he isn't the king. The constitution requires that the president "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". It isn't fraud when funds that were allocated by the act were distributed according to the act. If someone cheated then by all means they can bring charges if they have any evidence, which they apparently do not.
Terr_
> to try and revert something from under the previous administration
More-importantly, it's nowhere close to "normal" try-to-reverts, where one President tries to replace an equally "soft" policy put in place by another President.
Here the newly-installed crooks are trying to deny a hard "money shall be spent on X" law passed by Congress, which is an unconstitutional attempt to seize the "power of the purse".
Same legal-vibes as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes.
pjc50
> as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes
I'll pencil that in for April. After all, the president can direct who is and is not prosecuted..
tempodox
I was about to say, “don't give him any ideas”, but it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway.
chaos_agent
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jagged-chisel
> … as if …
This hasn’t happened already?
crypto_is_king
[flagged]
tremon
No he didn't. If he had, you would have posted a credible link.
burkaman
I searched for a while and haven't been able to figure out what you're referring to, can you explain?
chaos_agent
[dead]
Who investigates these 3 letter Gestapos? Throwing around muscle with no evidence to backup their fraud allegations. Ohhhh just like their "NAtioNaL SeCurItY".
Cowards. Hope people finally wake up and realize this gov is the most corrupt garbage that humanity has ever had.