Skip to content

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Because no one
is above the law!

Donate

Corruption Chronicles

EPA Nominee Quits Amid Fraud Probe

In the latest of many cabinet mishaps, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be second-in-command at the nation’s environmental agency has abruptly withdrawn amid a grant fraud investigation into a defunct group he once headed.

Obama had touted Jon Cannon to be Deputy Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but undesirable skeletons of the past quickly surfaced upon initial vetting and this week he pulled out of Senate confirmation hearings.

A former EPA lawyer, Cannon was on the board of directors of a nonprofit (America’s Clean Water Foundation) that shut down after getting busted by the government committing fraud with nearly $26 million in public funds and violating conflict of interest rules. 

A federal investigation found that the group did not comply with financial and management standards involving the multi million-dollar government grant, cheated in its accounting, could not support costs, submitted incorrect proposals to the government and violated conflict of interest rules by awarding a contract to a member of its board of directors.  

America’s Clean Water Foundation eventually folded and its directors went on their merry was as if nothing ever happened. In a statement posted on the EPA website, Cannon claims he withdrew after learning that his old group “has become the subject of scrutiny.” He adds that the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position and that he doesn’t want to present any distraction to the agency.

With around 17,000 employees and a $7.1 billion budget this year, the EPA aims to protect human health and the environment through science, research and education. The agency was involved in a political tug of war during the Bush Administration, with top scientists claiming that they were pressured by the White House to alter the findings of their work. 

Cannon is not the first Obama cabinet nominee to abruptly quit amid scandal. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination for Commerce Secretary when the feds announced they were investigating him for giving a shady California company a lucrative state contract after it donated big bucks to his Political Action Committee. Tom Daschle was forced to withdraw as Health Secretary because he owed more than $100,000 in taxes on his exorbitant income as a health consultant.  


Related

VP’s Failed Initiative to Curb Irregular Migration Gets Another $170 Mil as Numbers Surge

Corruption Chronicles | March 28, 2024
As enormous amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars pour into Central America under Vice President Kamala Harris’s ill-fated initiative to curb illegal immigration, the Biden administrati...

Judicial Watch: Federal Appeals Court Hearing in Lawsuit Challenging Illinois Counting Ballots up to…

Press Releases | March 27, 2024
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that an appellate oral argument is set for Thursday, March 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case fil...

Judicial Watch Sues to Get 911 Call, Arrest Report of Laken Riley’s Murder

In The News | March 27, 2024
From Breitbart: Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton announced a Georgia Open Records Act lawsuit against the University of Georgia (UGA) Police Department to get the 911 call made ...