Probe stalled by Trump officials finds they created red tape for Puerto Rico relief funds
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO -- The Trump administration created bureaucratic hurdles that delayed Puerto Rico’s access to about $20 billion in hurricane disaster recovery and mitigation funds, says an inspector general’s report released Thursday that also concludes the federal government slowed down a probe into the matter.
The investigation was opened in March 2019 at the request of Congress and evaluated how U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development policies and decisions affected the speed with which relief money was dispersed.
The federal report found that multiple administrative obstacles stalled the process of delivering aid—including a federal government shutdown, as well as moves by officials to add new layers of oversight and decisions to revise the grant requirements Puerto Rico had to meet.
Brian Montgomery, former deputy secretary to the housing agency, told investigators that there was widespread sentiment among senior officials that red tape had “unnecessarily delayed” efforts to hand over disaster relief funding to Puerto Rico.
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