Committee Democrats Uncover Potential Abuse of Power Scheme by High-Ranking Trump Official, Demand Independent Investigation

Committee Democrats Uncover Potential Abuse of Power Scheme by High-Ranking Trump Official, Demand Independent Investigation

Evidence suggests third-highest ranking Interior official's family received $3.5 million windfall tied to lithium mine her office helped approve

Washington, D.C. - Today, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) called on the Department of the Interior's (DOI) Office of Inspector General to investigate Associate Deputy Secretary Karen Budd-Falen for potential conflicts of interest, ethics violations, and self-dealing related to her family's multi-million-dollar financial stake in a Nevada lithium mine.

Last November, Huffman and Dexter raised serious concerns over Ms. Budd-Falen's failure to come clean to Congress about her financial and ethical dealings, noting the potential that she still illegally had ownership in the cattle ranching entity KJM LLC. Although DOI continued to withhold that information from Congress, they sent the records to a private party. Those records revealed that Budd-Falen not only kept her ownership interest in KJM LLC, but she also has a stake in three separate cattle ranching corporations.

New evidence compiled by Committee Democrats shows Ms. Budd-Falen may have abused her power while at the Department of Interior to give her family a $3.5 million windfall, tied to their ranching assets. Budd-Falen's family ranch sold water rights to Nevada Lithium Corporation that were essential for the company's Thacker Pass mine to move forward. In November 2019, while serving as Deputy Solicitor with authority over Fish and Wildlife Service matters, she secretly met with company executives in her DOI office. Her family wouldn't see the potential $3.5 million payday unless the mine won federal approval, which was still pending at the time.

The lawmakers' investigation also uncovered that the project faced a series of obstacles and strong pushback from career scientists and other experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These experts flagged serious concerns about the mine's impacts on endangered species and groundwater, calling portions of the environmental review wholly inadequate" and not "worth the paper ... it's written on." Those objections were ignored after political appointees got involved, with Bureau of Land Management officials threatening to "press the issue up the chain of command."

The Budd-Falen family got their final payday from Lithium Nevada Corporation in November 2023, only after the mine received federal approvals. Despite filing multiple financial disclosures during this period, Budd-Falen reported income from her family ranch as "None (or less than $201)."

Interior has refused to answer congressional inquiries and instructed staff not to cooperate with oversight requests, so the lawmakers are formally and publicly demanding the DOI Inspector General investigate whether Budd-Falen violated federal ethics rules and criminal conflict-of-interest statutes.

Read the full letter.

Read the November 2025 letter here.

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