Over the last few months, Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has made explosive accusations against the Biden administration, accusing it of “insane” malfeasance in its handling of $20 billion in climate grants.

Now, as a legal battle ensues over those funds, many of Mr. Zeldin’s claims have proven to be unsupported, and some flat-out false.

Mr. Zeldin has said that the program, which Congress approved as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, was vulnerable to “waste, fraud, and abuse.” If that claim was substantiated, it would allow the E.P.A. to take back the $20 billion, which was awarded to eight nonprofit groups. The money was to be used to finance projects across the country such as solar panels on community centers and geothermal systems to heat and cool subsidized housing.

But so far, the Trump administration has failed to provide evidence of wrongdoing, despite a judge’s request. The agency, which has worked to block the nonprofits from accessing the money, is now being sued by several of the organizations for breach of contract.

The parties are expected in federal court on Wednesday, and legal experts said the agency’s arguments increasingly appear thin.

“It’s just nonsense,” said Richard Lazarus, an environmental law professor at Harvard University.

He said when he first heard about Mr. Zeldin’s accusations about the $20 billion grant program, he was shocked. Then he read the Trump administration’s recent filings in federal court, which were supposed to provide evidence for its claims of fraud and abuse.

“They come in with huge press releases claiming all kinds of things, criminal misconduct, corruption, and then the documents that are filed in court don’t match that rhetoric,” Mr. Lazarus said. “It’s completely and utterly irresponsible.”

Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, declined to discuss the case, citing pending litigation. But she said the agency’s supporting documents provide a “fuller picture” than what Mr. Zeldin’s critics have described.

In its most recent court filing on March 26, the E.P.A. offered another argument for canceling the grants, claiming the climate funds no longer align with the Trump administration’s priorities. The money is currently frozen at Citibank, which had been selected by the Biden E.P.A. to hold the funds.

Accusations of ‘gold bars’

The $20 billion in limbo is part of a $27 billion program Congress created in the 2022 climate law called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. It provided initial money for “green banks,” which make loans meant to encourage solar, geothermal and other clean energy projects to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and the associated emissions that are driving climate change.

The idea behind the program was that funds would help recipients attract private investments they otherwise would not be able to get. When the loans were repaid, the money would be lent again to other projects, creating a self-perpetuating source of funding.

The size of the program — $27 billion — was three times the E.P.A.’s annual budget. It added a new finance component to an agency that traditionally had been focused on regulating pollution.

Biden administration officials said they followed stringent rules when designing the program and selecting the grant recipients. Documents filed with the court show that applicants had to meet eligibility requirements, and the submissions were reviewed by hundreds of federal employees who used a scoring system to rank applications.

After the eight nonprofit groups were selected in April 2024, Citibank was chosen to disperse the funds. Under the law, the E.P.A. was required to select grantees by September 2024.

Almost immediately after he was sworn in, Mr. Zeldin called on Citibank to return the money and issued a news release saying the Trump administration had found “gold bars,” that had been “parked” at a financial institution during the Biden administration.

The “gold bars” was a reference to a hidden-camera video produced last year by Project Veritas, a right-wing group known for trying to embarrass political opponents with covert recordings.

In the video, filmed in the waning days of the Biden administration, an E.P.A. staffer compared the agency’s efforts to spend federal dollars before presidential transition to tossing “gold bars” off the Titanic.

Mr. Zeldin and the E.P.A. have repeatedly cited the video as evidence of wrongdoing.

In February, a veteran prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Denise Cheung, said she resigned at the request of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. Attorney appointed by President Trump, because she refused to order Citibank to freeze the funds held for the nonprofits. She said there was not sufficient evidence of misuse.

The Department of Justice and the F.B.I. launched an investigation into the funds, and Mr. Zeldin referred the program to his agency’s acting inspector general for a separate investigation. In mid-February, Citibank froze the nonprofits’ bank accounts at the request of the Trump administration.

Other Trump administration claims

Although it was the first time the E.P.A. used a private bank to handle financial transactions, it is a longstanding practice of the federal government. A 2016 Government Accountability Office report found that one Treasury Department bureau was using 20 financial agents at the time.

But other accusations from the Trump administration followed the freezing of the money at Citibank.

In his address to Congress in March, President Trump claimed that a nonprofit “headed up” by Stacey Abrams, a Democratic organizer and former candidate for governor in Georgia, received $1.9 billion and called it an example of “appalling waste.”

Ms. Abrams served for one year as a senior counsel for Rewiring America, one of five nonprofit groups that were part of an umbrella organization called Power Forward Communities. Power Forward Communities was slated to receive nearly $2 billion from the $20 billion E.P.A. program.

Ms. Abrams did not run Rewiring America, received no money personally and had no relationship with the parent organization, Power Forward Communities’ chief executive officer has said.

In a letter to his agency’s acting inspector general in early March, Mr. Zeldin offered what he called “documented evidence of financial misconduct.”

Mr. Zeldin noted that Power Forward Communities reported just $100 in revenue in 2023, and questioned how an organization with such few resources could qualify for a $2 billion grant.

But Power Forward Communities was formed expressly to apply to the E.P.A. program and was made up of well established organizations like Habitat for Humanity and United Way, in addition to Rewiring America.

In his letter, Mr. Zeldin also said the design of the program “removed $20 billion from governmental oversight.” But according to court filings, the E.P.A. could monitor transactions made through the Citibank accounts.

Mr. Zeldin also accused Jahi Wise, a former E.P.A. official who had overseen the grant program, of directing billions of dollars to his former employer, the Coalition for Green Capital. That group was one of the nonprofit organizations to receive grants.

“Corrupt at its core!” Mr. Zeldin said on the social media platform X. He accused Mr. Wise of failing to recuse himself from funding decisions.

Court filings, however, tell a different story. Mr. Wise signed two ethics pledges and both available to Mr. Zeldin in E.P.A. files. They restricted Mr. Wise’s involvement in “reviewing, evaluating, selecting or approving funds” for climate grant applicants and forbade meetings or other contact with his former employer.

Mr. Wise declined to comment. The Coalition for Green Capital did not respond to a request for comment.

The accusations of malfeasance from the Trump administration appear to depend on circular reasoning. First, an accusation of wrongdoing would appear in a conservative news outlet or on social media. Then the E.P.A. would cite a need for an investigation. And finally, the administration would use the existence of an investigation as proof of wrongdoing.

“Lee Zeldin is running an Alice in Wonderland process, hurling meritless, unsubstantiated allegations that only serve as an excuse to break the law and the legal commitments of the United States government,” said John Podesta, who served as President Biden’s climate adviser.

In its most recent court filings, the E.P.A. has argued that regardless of whether there was fraud and abuse or whether the program was designed without adequate oversight, the agency could cancel the contracts simply because the projects no longer aligned with the Trump administration’s priorities.

It has also said that the E.P.A. changed the terms of its contract with organizations “in the twilight of the prior administration” before Mr. Trump took office to make it harder for the new administration to terminate the grants for noncompliance or misconduct.

William W. Buzbee, a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, said changing the terms of contracts is not illegal. He said the agency’s most recent legal filings are “backpedaling from all of the more extreme accusations” regarding fraud, waste and abuse.

Nonprofits under strain

For weeks, as the grant money has remained frozen, the nonprofit recipients have struggled to continue operating. Some have raised concerns about paying employees, making office rent, and missing crucial project deadlines.

Signs of strain are beginning to emerge. United Way and Habitat for Humanity both exited Power Forward Communities, citing the need to focus on their charitable missions rather than legal battles, according to statements shared with The Times.

The funding freeze has also threatened the viability of local projects that had been promised loans or investments.

The Lafayette Lofts, in Clinton, Iowa, a rural community on the Mississippi River, is one such project, according to court documents The 119-year-old building is being converted to affordable housing units. Using a loan through the green bank, the developer had hoped to install solar panels as well as a geothermal heating and cooling system — something he said traditional lenders wouldn’t readily finance.

Others projects currently in limbo include a 46-home affordable rental community in Michigan intended for people recovering from addiction, a health center in New Jersey, and a solar development built on landfills that would power an auto manufacturer in Ohio.

“Its unfortunate this stuff gets caught up in politics,” said Brent Crittenden, the developer of Lafayette Lofts. “Our industry moves slowly and when changes get made acutely it does make it extremely challenging.”