Bureaucrats Tossing Gold Bars Off The Titanic – OpEd
During its last four months in power, the Biden-Harris administration opened the U.S. government’s money spigots as wide as they could. Appointed officials and bureaucrats across the federal government frantically spent money at a rate never before seen outside of pandemics and wars.
But there was no national emergency in these months. A very different motive drove their frantic spending. For the outgoing officials and the bureaucrats who supported them, it was their “insurance policy” against losing power in Washington, D.C.
That claim was made by a member of the Biden-Harris administration who served as a special adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency. It was captured in a undercover investigation by Project Veritas and reported nearly a month after former Vice-President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election.
After the report, the Biden-Harris EPA spokesman denied any wrongdoing. In the weeks and months that followed, the allegation was not confirmed. It seemed the story was at a dead end.
Evidence Emerges of a Wild Spending Spree
That changed on February 12, 2024. The new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, confirmed in a video announcement that the EPA rushed large amounts of cash out the door in the Biden-Harris administration’s waning days.
Here’s a transcript of the portion of the video directly addressing the allegation:
One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars. There will be zero tolerance of any waste and abuse.
An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were “tossing gold bars off the Titanic”, rushing to get billions of your tax out the door before Inauguration Day. The “gold bars” were tax dollars and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden Administration knew they were wasting it.
Following this revelation, during my meetings with members of Congress, I made a very important commitment to them and to the American people, which I reiterated at my confirmation hearing that if confirmed, I would immediately get a full accounting.
Fortunately, my awesome team at EPA has found the gold bars. Shockingly, roughly 20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA.
This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.
Even further, this pot of $20 billion was awarded to just eight entities that were then responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency. Just under $7 billion was sent to one entity called the Climate United Fund.
I’m sure you and I now have some of the same questions.
- How do these organizations decide how to allocate funding?
- How much money have they given out so far and to whom?
- Are there any former Biden EPA staff offers who are now working at these entities?
Let me make one thing abundantly clear. At this point there is zero reason to suspect any wrongdoing by the bank.
Here’s my position as EPA administrator. The financial agent agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated and the bank must immediately return all of the gold bars that the Biden Administration tossed off the Titanic.
EPA needs to reassume responsibility for all of these funds. We will review every penny that has gone out the door. I will be referring this matter to the Inspector General’s office and will work with the Justice Department as well.
The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.
The American public deserves a more transparent and accountable government than what transpired these past four years. We take our obligations under the law as seriously as it gets.
I’ve directed my team to find your gold bars and they found them. Now we will get them back inside of control of government as we pursue next steps.
To get so much money out the door so quickly, Biden-Harris EPA officials circumvented safeguards intended to prevent government officials from wasting taxpayer money. They were indeed“throwing gold bars” off their “sinking Titanic.” Their actions to short-cut these spending controls gave them away.
Potential Criminal Dimensions
In addition to circumventing the EPA’s accounting controls, the officials and bureaucrats may also have tripped over other laws restricting government employees from exploiting their positions for personal gain.
For example, if any officials improperly moved taxpayer funds to groups where they later got jobs after leaving public service, that feather-nesting could represent a kind of embezzlement or racketeering. The Justice Department will very likely investigate that potential.
I suppose the most amazing part about the story is the original claim made by the Biden-Harris special adviser to the EPA. Their brazenness following their election loss suggests they didn’t think they would ever face any consequences for their actions. It’s a remarkable dimension in the annals of bureaucrats behaving badly.
- This article was published at The Beacon
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Craig Eyermann
Craig Eyermann is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is also the creator of MyGovCost.org: Government Cost Calculator. He received his M.S. in mechanical engineering from New Mexico State University and M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix, having received a B.S. in both mechanical and aerospace engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
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