"President Donald Trump’s Interior Department is withholding key ethics disclosure information for Karen Budd-Falen, a high-ranking agency appointee who is facing calls for an investigation into her financial ties to a massive lithium mining project, Public Domain has learned.
Interior’s Office of the Solicitor released 91 pages of ethics documents Friday from Budd-Falen’s time in both Trump administrations to the Center for Western Priorities, a Colorado-based conservation group, after initially telling the group it had no such files in its records. But the release redacted crucial information, some of which has been detailed elsewhere, while at the same time raising new questions about Budd-Falen’s personal interest in a major lithium mine project in Nevada.
It is the latest in an unusually chaotic and disjointed release of what are typically the most basic of public disclosures, as Budd-Falen faces growing scrutiny over a lucrative water sale in the arid Southwest. Ethics guidance and recusals are standard for executive branch appointees and outline steps public servants must take to avoid conflicts of interest.
“These documents suggest that [Interior Secretary] Doug Burgum has a massive problem at the Interior ethics office,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities. “If Karen Budd-Falen still hasn’t received updated ethics agreements or waivers, then the ethics office is failing at its job. These documents, even in their highly-redacted forms, show that the [Inspector General] needs to launch an urgent investigation into Karen Budd-Falen and Interior ethics officials.”"
Chris D'Angelo reports for Public Domain February 23, 2026. Co-published with High Country News.
