President Donald Trump’s Department of Energy made a damning admission in court — and it left one legal observer stunned.
According to The New York Times, “federal officials acknowledged this month” in court documents that they rescinded $7.5 billion in clean energy grants “‘based solely’ on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.”
This revelation, noted The Times, indicates that “far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Mr. Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.”
The report was immediately pounced on by American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, who noted that the administration has publicly denied any such motive for canceling the grants.
“The Department of Energy admitted in court it cancelled hundreds of grants ‘based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state,’ and NOT ‘based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor,’” Reichlin-Melnick wrote on X. “This proves the White House lied.”
The Energy grants are not the first time the administration has been accused of politically gatekeeping federal funds.
In April, a federal judge in Rhode Island accused the administration of “covertly” denying disaster aid to states that voted against him in the 2024 presidential election.