Top D.C. Prosecutor Resigns After Pressure to Investigate Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Grants

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Top D.C. Prosecutor Resigns After Pressure to Investigate Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Grants

For Immediate Release: February 19, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Denise Cheung, a veteran prosecutor in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal division in Washington, D.C., resigned after she refused to open an unfounded criminal investigation into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund yesterday. According to Ms. Cheung’s resignation letter, the Trump administration insisted she open an investigation and freeze assets despite “current lack of evidence of any apparent crime” which resulted in interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin demanding her resignation. In response to Ms. Cheung’s resignation, David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program, issued the following statement:

“In a chilling development, the Trump-Musk administration is now trying to weaponize the Justice Department to baselessly investigate and freeze the bank accounts of businesses and organizations it dislikes. Every financial institution—and anyone with a bank account—should be deeply alarmed and do everything in their power to push back. If the federal government can abuse the criminal justice system to interfere with lawful financial activity, the opportunities for corruption, self-dealing, and authoritarianism escalate exponentially. These actions flagrantly violate the law, as well as the ethical rules that lawyers must follow.

“They are also grossly immoral in attempting to block community and environmental justice organizations from using congressionally authorized grants to mitigate and adapt to climate harms, at the same time as the Trump-Musk administration does everything in its power to block renewable energy and boost climate-destroying fossil fuel pollution.

“The Trump administration doesn’t like important climate change programs passed into law as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. It is free to ask Congress to repeal those programs. It is not free to manufacture criminal investigations and prosecutions to sabotage the law and threaten prison time to those lawfully implementing Congressionally authorized initiatives.”

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