Sources say the FBI, under the direction of the Trump administration, is moving to criminalize organizations that received Biden-era climate grants. In court filings Wednesday, Citibank said that the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Treasury Department requested that the accounts of some nonprofits and state government agencies be frozen, a move that the bank made last month. Three of the nonprofits are now suing the bank, asking for the funds to be released, TechCrunch reports. Citibank said in its filings that the federal government told it that the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, through which the grants were given out, was the subject of an "ongoing criminal investigation," MSNBC reports.
The $27 billion fund was created by the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Congress in 2022, and Citibank was chosen to administer the funds. But the new EPA administrator recently announced $20 billion in grants from the fund have been terminated, and called for all disbursed funds to be returned immediately. Per Citibank, the FBI told the bank there was "'credible information' of possible criminal violations" including wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the US. Citibank says it was asked to freeze accounts including Habitat for Humanity, United Way, the Colorado Clean Energy Fund, and New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. (More Trump administration stories.)
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