"Citing Public Domain’s reporting, a watchdog group calls on Congress to investigate Karen Budd-Falen."
"A top Interior Department official is under renewed scrutiny as growing ethics scandals engulf the powerful public lands agency.
Over the weekend, Campaign for Accountability, a government watchdog group, sent letters to the House and Senate seeking Congressional investigations into Karen Budd-Falen, the third highest-ranking official at the Interior Department and a longtime rancher and attorney. The letters, which extensively cite Public Domain’s reporting, detail what the Campaign describes as “serious and escalating ethics violations” and the Interior Department’s “apparent failure” to address them.
“The evidence now available — including on-camera statements by Ms. Budd-Falen herself, financial disclosure records, and ethics documents obtained through public records requests — establishes that she has been actively directing federal public lands policy in ways that benefit her family’s extensive ranching operation, in apparent violation of both the specific ethics commitments she made in the first Trump administration and the federal conflict of interest statute,” the letters read."
Jimmy Tobias and Chris D'Angelo report for Public Domain May 11, 2026.
