'Let Me Stop You Right There!': Sheldon Whitehouse Has Tought Grilling Of EPA's Lee Zeldin

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At today's Senate Environment Committee hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) questioned EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Zeldin, hello again. Hello again. Hope you'll answer my questions. I'd appreciate it. The first

00:07is on February 17th the FBI told Citibank to freeze the GGRF funds. Did you have anything

00:16to do with that? No. Were you aware of that? I was made aware of that. Shortly after? I think I got

00:29my update on that after Citibank instituted the freeze. Okay. Do you know who the FBI was reporting

00:38to when it took that action? All of the stuff that you went through a lot earlier that were

00:47not, as you know, at the Judiciary Committee hearing. There are questions that I just don't

00:52have the answers. Yeah, that's fine. Just say you don't know. That's fine. Were you aware

00:58that on February 18th the criminal chief of the DC U.S. Attorney's Office resigned over

01:06this effort to get this freeze? I learned about that reading about it in the newspaper. Okay.

01:11So shortly after February 18th when that became news? Whenever it broke in the news. Did you

01:18find out at some point that Mr. Martin had failed to get his order from the magistrate judge?

01:26Ask the question again? Did I learn what? U.S. Attorney Martin went to the magistrate judge

01:37seeking an order that would allow for the freeze of the Citibank-held assets. I was aware of that.

01:45Okay. After the fact. Do you know when the order was denied? I don't have that date. Okay.

01:52Do you... The reason I am asking this is because on February 23rd, 2025, you said about the GGRF

02:05that the entire scheme, in my opinion, is criminal, which is a pretty strong word to use, and I'm

02:11trying to figure out what you knew when you said it was criminal. So you knew by then, at least,

02:15that the criminal chief had resigned over this issue. It's not clear whether you knew at that time

02:25that Martin's order had been rejected by the magistrate judge. Could you find that out for me?

02:31What was the timing of when you knew that Martin's order had been rejected by the judge in comparison

02:38to your statement that this was criminal? Yeah. And would you like me to tell you everything that I knew

02:42when I made that statement? Sure. Okay. So the first thing was a Biden EPA official...

02:49Particularly... Well, not right now. You can... We can do this in a QRF because I'd like to get through

02:57some other questions. Later on, on March 6th, you also said that this was either a kickback, a theft,

03:05or graft, or all of the above, on Fox News. And if you could also put into the timeline of what you

03:16knew and when you knew it, that March 6th statement. I would be grateful to that, about that. Now,

03:27somewhere between March 9th and 10th, there was a series of emails between EPA and DOJ, in which

03:32the top career EPA attorney, a gentleman named Jim Payne, warned that there were significant legal

03:38vulnerabilities with the Citibank freeze. Do you know what those significant legal vulnerabilities

03:44were that he was referring to? I could speculate that if you're going through a...

03:50what is claimed to be a breach of contract, and the Court of Federal Claims, which is a court

03:55that would actually have jurisdiction over it, not a district court, inside there they would determine,

03:59one, if there was a breach of contract, and then two, they would decide on damages.

04:03So it could be not on the merits, but just on the venue, on the appropriate court.

04:08Well, I'm just saying the way that process would go...

04:11So those $20 billion went to eight pass-through entities. A little over $3 billion of that

04:17actually was dispersed. The rest has been frozen. All the grants have been terminated.

04:23Let me ask you about that, because my time is getting a little bit short here. I'm sorry to cut you off.

04:28But the New York Times has reported that one of the grantees has been told it no longer needs to comply

04:33with a February 20 subpoena, suggesting that the investigation is closing.

04:38Is the investigation closing? Again, you should ask that question.

04:42Any question that you have as far as Justice Department as an agency should be directed to the Justice Department.

04:49You were not involved in all of that? No, I'm focused on the EPA.

04:55Okay. So focusing on the EPA in my last second, DOJ lawyers representing EPA admitted in the circuit court of appeals

05:04that they are not accusing anybody of fraud. That's their quote, not accusing anybody of fraud.

05:12And EPA in that courtroom specifically read it several times that no grantee had engaged in any fraud, waste, or abuse.

05:22Do you stand by the statements of your lawyers in that courtroom?

05:26I would love to be able to go through the list of all of the waste and abuse that I'm aware of,

05:32but it seems like you and your colleagues want anything other than for me to go through the list of evidence.

05:38You're more than welcome to submit a list of all the evidence.

05:41But when I only have five minutes, I don't want you to...

05:43You don't want me to go through the list of evidence.

05:45You just want to say that we don't have any, right?

05:47No, no, stop.

05:48You just want to say we don't have any and then say I don't have time to go through the list.

05:50Hold on. Hold on. Let me stop you right there.

05:53It's not me saying that you don't have any.

05:55It's your lawyers in a court proceeding saying you don't have any.

05:59Allow me to talk through it.

06:00So I'll take it as a question for the record because our time is up.

06:03But please give me your list. I'd be more than happy to review it.

06:06Gary sent you over a lot of it, but I guess you haven't read it.

06:09All right. Here we go.

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