"Democratic lawmakers are calling for a federal ethics probe into Karen Budd-Falen, the long time conservative operative who is serving in the No. 3 position at President Trump's Interior Department. In a letter sent Tuesday to Interior's acting Inspector General, Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) said Budd-Falen "failed to come clean to Congress about her financial and ethical dealings" and that new evidence of "an undisclosed conflict of interest ... demands immediate investigation.""
"The letter, which directly cites Public Domain and High Country News, comes in the wake of an investigation this outlet published in December that revealed Budd-Falen's husband struck a deal in 2018 to sell water rights from one of the family's ranches to the developer of the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada. The lucrative arrangement was finalized not long after Budd-Falen joined the first Trump administration as a top legal official at the Interior Department in early November 2018."
Democratic representatives Jared Huffman and Maxine Dexter requested a federal ethics investigation into Karen Budd-Falen for failing to disclose family financial ties connected to a Nevada lithium mine. Evidence cited alleges Budd-Falen's family sold water rights to the Thacker Pass developer in 2018, shortly after she joined the Interior Department, and that she met with executives from the mine's parent company in November 2019. Lawmakers contend that Budd-Falen may have used her Interior position to fast-track the project, allow the company to skip environmental review, and produce a roughly $3.5 million benefit to her family.
Read at High Country News
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