A politically fraught investigation opened by the Trump administration into a Biden-era Environmental Protection Agency grant program has so far failed to find meaningful evidence of criminality by government officials, according to people familiar with the matter.
The criminal investigation, initiated by Ed Martin, then the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, was cheered by Republicans, who have made unsubstantiated claims that the multibillion-dollar program, intended to fund climate and clean energy initiatives, was a political slush fund.
The program, part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, was one of President Biden’s most significant actions on the environment.
Internal disagreements over the merits of the investigation raised alarms among current and former Justice Department officials, who were concerned that the Trump administration was misusing the vast power of federal law enforcement to discredit people, policies and programs President Trump disliked, such as clean energy projects.
While the investigation of some entities that received money through the program is continuing, agents and prosecutors see little evidence of any criminal conduct by E.P.A. officials who oversaw the funding. The vendor portion of the inquiry has yet to yield any strong evidence of criminal conduct, according to people with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Prosecutors and agents have shared their findings with senior political leaders at the Justice Department, according to people familiar with the matter.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, a senior prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office informed one vendor who received a contract through the E.P.A. program that it would no longer need to turn over documents and correspondence as required by a Feb. 20 subpoena obtained by Mr. Martin, a conservative Republican activist close to Mr. Trump.
The investigation has been a source of considerable frustration and consternation among federal prosecutors, as political appointees pressed for investigative steps, such as freezing bank accounts, that career officials believed were unwarranted. The conflict led to the abrupt departure of a senior career prosecutor in the office.
At issue was billions of dollars in federal “green bank” funding from the E.P.A.’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which received more than $20 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act. The fund, which disbursed grants to eight vendors, was a political target for the right.
Earlier this year, Trump administration officials claimed that they had evidence the funding had been improperly distributed — it had been “parked” at a major bank in the waning days of the Biden administration. They suggested they had uncovered extensive fraud, including the illicit transfer of gold bars, without providing evidence.
Trump administration officials referred to a video released last year by Project Veritas, a conservative group known for its sting operations aimed at news organizations, Democratic politicians and advocacy groups. The group’s tactics have prompted allegations of publishing deceptively edited videos.
The video, filmed in a social setting, showed Brent Efron, then an E.P.A. employee, talking about the departing Biden administration’s efforts to quickly spend federal money. He compared it to throwing “gold bars” off the Titanic before it sank. A lawyer for Mr. Efron has since said he was not referring to the grant program.
The E.P.A. used Citibank to transfer much of the money, which was frozen for part of the time the program was being investigated.
It is not clear whether a parallel administrative review by the E.P.A. inspector general, who had been working with prosecutors, is continuing.
Mark Zaid, a lawyer for Mr. Efron, said the inquiry was without merit. “There was absolutely never anything there to investigate,” he said.
The E.P.A., which has worked in recent months to block the nonprofits from gaining access to the money, is now being sued by several of the organizations for breach of contract.
During a hearing on the case in April, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the E.P.A. provided “different positions” to justify its actions, but not evidence of waste, fraud or abuse.
“Here we are, weeks in, and you’re still unable to proffer me any evidence with regard to malfeasance,” she told Justice Department officials.
From the start, experts in the distribution of government funds said Mr. Trump and his allies either misunderstood or mischaracterized how such payments work.
The issue came to a head in February at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, where a top prosecutor, Denise Cheung, abruptly resigned after refusing an order to open a criminal investigation into a government vendor and to freeze unspent assets kept in accounts with banks, including Citibank.
In her resignation letter, Ms. Cheung said she felt there was not sufficient evidence to justify cutting off the nonprofits’ access to the accounts.
After her resignation, the office pressed on with the case, but investigators who pored over account information and related evidence could not find reason to believe a crime had been committed by E.P.A. officials, according to people familiar with the case.
Charlie Savage contributed reporting.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
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