The top criminal prosecutor in the Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney’s Office, Denise Cheung, resigned Tuesday after declining a request from her Trump-appointed superiors to open a grand jury investigation that she viewed as premature, CNN reports. The direction originated from Emil Bove, the department’s acting deputy attorney general, to Ed Martin, whom President Trump has nominated to be the permanent U.S. Attorney.
Cheung, a long-time DOJ employee, had been asked to shepherd an investigation into an Environmental Protection Agency funding decision during the Biden administration. She refused the order and resigned, in part because she believed there wasn’t sufficient evidence to take that step at the time, as well as seeking to protect lower-level prosecutors from the work.
The Trump administration has consistently criticized Biden’s spending on environmental programs. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin’s said he has had “found” $20 billion worth of funding from former President Biden’s 2022 climate law in a Citibank account, and wanted to return the money to the U.S. Treasury. EPA said it would work with DOJ on the issue. Zeldin has suggested the funding was rushed to eight non-profits to distribute at the end of the Biden administration through the Inflation Reduction Act. A former EPA official responsible for implementing the funding said it wasn’t rushed or set up nefariously. Martin, as acting U.S. Attorney, had enlisted Cheung and another career prosecutor to look at how prosecutors charged January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol rioters with a felony obstruction charge that the Supreme Court later overturned.
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