The Department of Justice is working with the Department of Government Efficiency to collect referrals for criminal fraud investigations.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday during a Cabinet meeting that her department has a team of attorneys in place working with DOGE leader Elon Musk, who is helping them take referrals from Cabinet members.
“We are hearing a lot about fraud, waste and abuse. A lot of waste and abuse, but there is a tremendous amount of fraud,” Ms. Bondi said.
She lauded Mr. Musk for his partnership before promising to “prosecute” those engaged in fraud within the federal government.
“We have an internal task force now working with every agency sitting here at this table, and if you’ve committed fraud, we’re coming after you,” she said.
President Trump and Cabinet members listed examples of fraud and abuse that were found in agencies recently. They included government workers not coming to work or working remotely and fraudulent vendor contracts.
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“That was just terrible is the contracts that we’re finding. The fraudulent contracts that we’re finding, where millions and millions of dollars, and even billions of dollars, in some cases, were given out,” Mr. Trump said.
Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Lee Zeldin said his agency has canceled more than $22 billion worth of contracts, including $2 billion going to the New Georgia Project, a nonprofit tied to former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
“They received only $100 in 2023, and then the Biden administration gave them $2 billion,” Mr. Zeldin said.
The Washington Times reached out to the New Georgia Project for comment.
The EPA earlier this month formally referred to the Office of the Inspector General “conflicts of interest” and “oversight failures” with the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The program is undergoing a comprehensive review alongside concurrent investigations by the DOJ and the FBI.
“So, $20 billion went to just eight NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], and they’re all pass-throughs — they were giving it to other entities. What you have is all these extra middlemen; they’re taking their cut, and the taxpayer ends up getting screwed,” Mr. Zeldin said.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum noted that a federal consulting group manages contracts for many different agencies.
“One of those contracts was to do surveys of individuals, $830 million for surveys. And so part of the question was, ‘Hey, can we actually see the surveys?’ And then the surveys came back,” Mr. Burgum said. “The survey was like eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper with 10 questions that anyone’s child in junior high could put together, or AI could have done for free.”
Mr. Trump said government officials often like to use the words “waste” and “abuse,” noting that they “sort of sound good, but many of these things are pure fraud.”
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said her department canceled a $300,000 contract for educating food justice for “queer and transgender farmers in San Francisco.” She said her agency canceled a similar contract in New York called “educating transgender and queer farmers on food justice and food equality.”
“I’m not even sure what that means, but, apparently the last administration wanted to put our taxpayer dollars towards that,” Ms. Rollins said. “We canceled a $600,000 contract out of Louisiana, that was studying the menstrual cycles of transgender men, a $600,000 contract.”
Ms. Rollins also said that her department had canceled another contract out of a university that focused on diversity, equity and inclusion into the pest management industry.
“It makes zero sense to use taxpayer dollars to fund these. I know these are just a few examples of the hundreds that we have found,” she said.
