Trump admin admits terminating grants only in states that voted for Kamala Harris
In a stunning admission, the Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing last week that it whittled down a list of more than 600 clean energy project grants by only terminating the ones in states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.The July 15 filing, made in a case challenging the Trump administration’s cancellation of Biden-era grants, indicates the Department of Energy compiled a list of 624 grants to axe last fall before the White House Office of Management and Budget trimmed it in half, sparing projects in red states from losing federal funding. “With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators,” Jeff Novak, the principal deputy general counsel of the Department of Energy, wrote in the filing. “The remaining approximately 340 grants proposed for termination were not terminated in October 2025, and they have not since been terminated,” Novak continued.“All such grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to President Trump in the 2024 election or has at least one Republican-caucusing Senator.” OMB Director Russ Vought announced the cuts in an X post last October, which named “CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA” as the states where project funding was affected. “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.
More info to come from [DOE],” Vought wrote. Democrats contend the filing demonstrates that Trump administration officials “corruptly abused their power” to terminate grants solely on the basis of the political identity of the states receiving federal money.“This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it t...