The Zeldin Query: Why The Man Who Regulated iGas Might Now Prosecute The CCP Cash That Funded Florida’s Political Machine – JP
EPA Chief who penalized iGas is the leading candidate US Attorney General. The same DOJ that has jurisdiction over foreign national contribution violations, the FARA evasion, and the money laundering.
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Today, President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has been installed as Acting Attorney General. Multiple sources confirm that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is the leading candidate for permanent appointment. Trump met with Zeldin on Tuesday to discuss “California wildfires.” They also discussed the AG role.
This matters far beyond the Beltway personnel shuffle. It matters because Zeldin has been running the federal agency that directly regulates the core business of iGas USA, the Tampa refrigerant company I identified as a conduit for Chinese Communist Party money into American elections. The agency that penalized iGas for importing hydrofluorocarbons without required allowances. The agency that has been locked in federal litigation with iGas for over two years.
If Zeldin is confirmed as Attorney General, he will bring institutional knowledge of the iGas regulatory file into a Department of Justice that has jurisdiction over the criminal enforcement side of everything I have documented in MUR 8439.
That is not a coincidence and it deserves serious examination.
What Zeldin Knows
Lee Zeldin has been EPA Administrator since January 2025. During his tenure, the following happened:
The D.C. Circuit ruled against iGas. In IGas Holdings, Inc. v. EPA, No. 23-1261 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 1, 2025), a unanimous panel rejected iGas’s challenge to the EPA’s HFC allowance allocation methodology. iGas argued that excluding 2020 import data was arbitrary and capricious. The court found the EPA’s methodology was reasonable and that the agency provided a rational explanation for its decision. Rehearing was denied in September 2025.
The EPA penalized iGas for illegal imports. In the November 2025 Federal Register notice of 2026 HFC allowance allocations, the EPA disclosed that iGas Holdings had imported regulated HFCs without expending the requisite number of consumption allowances. The agency retired and revoked consumption allowances commensurate with the quantities illegally imported. That enforcement action occurred under Zeldin’s leadership.
Zeldin restructured the HFC regulatory framework. In October 2025, Zeldin signed a proposed rule reconsidering the Technology Transitions Rule, pushing back compliance deadlines for supermarket refrigeration systems and raising GWP thresholds from 150/300 to 1,400. Critics, including the NRDC, accused Zeldin of “catering to a few corporate laggards” at the expense of companies that had invested in lower-GWP alternatives. The companies that benefit from delayed HFC phasedowns are disproportionately importers of bulk Chinese-manufactured HFCs, precisely the market iGas dominates.
The EPA maintained enforcement focus on illegal HFC imports. Even as Zeldin pursued deregulation on the technology transitions side, the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance issued a March 2025 memorandum stating that enforcement “regarding hydrofluorocarbons shall focus on the unlawful import and subsequent sale of HFCs.” A July 2025 enforcement alert specifically targeted illegal HFC imports, using both civil and criminal enforcement authorities.
This means Zeldin has been sitting at the intersection of the iGas regulatory universe for over a year. He has seen the enforcement file. He has seen the litigation file. He has seen the compliance violations. Whether he has connected those dots to the political contribution network I have documented is the question his Senate confirmation process needs to answer.
What the iGas Network Is
For readers encountering this investigation for the first time, here is what iGas is and why it matters.
iGas USA, Inc. (EIN: 36-4897416) operates out of 8105 Anderson Road in Tampa, Florida, as the primary U.S. contribution vehicle in a network of twelve entities proposed for OFAC designation. Its founding partner is Zhejiang Juhua Co., Ltd., a company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (stock code: 600160) and majority-owned (55.86%) by Juhua Group Corporation, which is 100% owned by the Zhejiang Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), a state organ of the People’s Republic of China. Zhejiang Juhua invested $10 million in iGas and retained a 34% ownership stake under a formal Joint Venture Contract executed February 28, 2018. Xianbin Meng serves as President of all BMP/iGas-affiliated entities simultaneously, as confirmed in an EPA Consent Agreement signed under penalty of law on January 19, 2023.
Beginning in 2014, the United States Department of Commerce formally determined that Zhejiang Juhua is a state-owned enterprise subsidiary controlled by the Zhejiang Provincial SASAC. In 2016, Commerce issued its central de facto control finding: “Juhua Group SASAC controls the selection of Zhejiang Juhua’s management.” That finding was reaffirmed in the 2017 Issues and Decision Memorandum, sustained by the Court of International Trade in 2018, extended to additional product lines in the 2018 PTFE Resin determination, and applied directly to the BMP/iGas U.S. entities in the 2020 anti-circumvention final determination. The determination has been reviewed and sustained under four consecutive presidential administrations: Obama, Trump (first term), Biden, and Trump (second term). It has survived federal court challenge.
Despite that determination, iGas and its affiliated entities and employees have contributed $3,796,954.55 to 156 American political committees (federal and state, bipartisan) while simultaneously spending at least $410,000 in federal lobbying fees through three registered firms: Ballard Partners, Capitol Counsel LLC, and Husch Blackwell LLP. The combined influence expenditure exceeds $4.2 million. The contribution network is bipartisan, spanning Republican and Democratic committees from the NRCC ($715,600) to ActBlue ($44,787) to the DCCC ($30,125) to Biden for President ($16,685). Among the largest Republican beneficiaries: the DeSantis network received over $687,000 across Friends of Ron DeSantis ($340,000), Empower Parents PAC ($320,000), Never Back Down ($10,000), Team DeSantis 2024 ($11,600), and DeSantis for President ($6,600). As I documented in my earlier reporting, Ashley Moody’s committees received $233,690 across five affiliated committees: Friends of Ashley Moody ($65,000), Stronger Safer Nation ($100,000), Ashley Moody Victory Fund ($48,000), Moody for Florida ($14,000), and Stronger Safer Nation’s predecessor ($6,690). Those contributions were subsequently commingled into the $3.85 million transferred to Protect Florida PAC and deployed in connection with her Senate campaign. Byron Donalds’ gubernatorial PAC, Friends of Byron Donalds, received $450,000.
As recently as January 2026, the Washington Examiner reported that Byron Donalds, the frontrunner in the Florida gubernatorial race, took multiple six-figure donations from iGas and its CEO during June 2025, even as he publicly described China as America’s “top hegemonic adversary.” Most striking: on December 26, 2025, iGas USA contributed $100,000 to Stronger Safer Nation (Ashley Moody’s Super PAC), and on December 30, 2025, Meng Xianbin personally contributed $100,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. That is $200,000 in five days, approximately five months after the D.C. Circuit denied iGas’s regulatory petitions, suggesting an escalation from judicial to political channels after exhausting judicial remedies.
As my OFAC petition documents, if OFAC has designated entities for sending threatening emails to voters, hacking campaign email accounts, and posting AI-generated deepfakes on social media (all prior E.O. 13848 designations involved $0 in financial contributions), then the case for designating an entity that deposited $3,796,954.55 in cash into 156 U.S. campaign committee accounts while its own lobbyists told Congress it was a subsidiary of a PRC state-owned enterprise is overwhelming. This would be the first PRC-linked E.O. 13848 designation.
Despite the Commerce Department’s de facto CCP control determination, three lobbying firms registered iGas under the Lobbying Disclosure Act rather than the Foreign Agents Registration Act, filing twelve LDA forms between October 2023 and January 2026. Ballard Partners filed the original LD-1 on November 21, 2023, four days after the Miami Herald published the Zhejiang Juhua ownership story, answering “No” on Line 14 (foreign entity ownership) when Zhejiang Juhua held a 34% stake exceeding the 20% threshold by 70%. Thirteen days later, Ballard filed a corrected LD-1 disclosing the ownership. In two subsequent quarterly filings, Ballard described iGas as “a subsidiary of Zhejiang Juhua Co., LTD.” In 2025, Capitol Counsel LLC and Husch Blackwell LLP each independently disclosed “Zhejiang Province SASAC 51% ownership in Zhejiang Juhua Co.” in their sworn LDA registrations. Capitol Counsel’s registration names George Sifakis, former Trump White House Director of the Office of Public Liaison, as a lobbyist for iGas. As I have argued in MUR 8439 and in my reporting on the Rivera trial, the LDA registration was the wrong filing. The de facto CCP control determination triggers FARA. Under the legal theory the DOJ successfully prosecuted in United States v. Rivera, the lobbying fees collected and the downstream political contributions are potentially proceeds of an unregistered foreign influence operation.
The Two-Front War
I published a companion piece earlier today: The CCP’s Two-Front War on American Sovereignty: From Midwest Statehouses to Florida Campaign Accounts. That article documents how the same Chinese province running activist front groups in Ohio is bankrolling Florida elections through iGas.
The pattern is not subtle. The People’s Republic of China has identified two vectors for influencing American domestic policy: direct political contributions laundered through nominally American corporate entities with undisclosed Chinese state ownership, and regulatory capture through the same companies lobbying for favorable treatment at the agencies that govern their industries.
iGas is doing both simultaneously. It is contributing to the politicians who oversee the agencies that regulate its business, while litigating against those agencies when the regulatory outcomes are unfavorable. And it is doing all of this while operating under a formal Commerce Department determination that it is de facto controlled by the CCP. The infiltration extends beyond campaign finance and lobbying: Cool Master Pro, LLC (EIN: 84-3971920), a network entity, maintains a fraudulent Small Disadvantaged Business self-certification on SAM.gov, with a deliberate officer discrepancy (Alvarez listed on SAM.gov versus Meng on Florida Sunbiz records) designed to obscure the PRC ownership chain in the federal procurement system.
What Zeldin at DOJ Would Mean
If Lee Zeldin is confirmed as Attorney General, several things happen at once.
First, the DOJ gains an AG with direct institutional knowledge of the iGas regulatory and enforcement landscape. Zeldin does not need to be briefed on what iGas is, what it does, who owns it, or why the EPA has been penalizing it. He has been living in that file for fifteen months.
Second, the DOJ gains an AG who has demonstrated willingness to take enforcement action against iGas. The allowance revocation in the November 2025 Federal Register is not nothing. It is the EPA formally documenting that iGas violated federal law by importing HFCs without proper authorization. That is an administrative enforcement action, but the underlying conduct, importing controlled substances in violation of federal regulations, can support criminal referral.
Third, the DOJ gains an AG whose deregulatory posture on HFC technology transitions has been criticized as favorable to the exact market segment iGas occupies. The NRDC and environmental groups have argued that Zeldin’s proposed rule changes benefit companies importing bulk Chinese HFCs at the expense of American manufacturers who invested in cleaner alternatives. Whether that criticism is fair or unfair, it creates a factual record that Zeldin’s Senate confirmation process will need to address.
Fourth, the Senate Judiciary Committee will have the opportunity, and the obligation, to ask Zeldin directly about the iGas/Zhejiang Juhua foreign national contribution network during his confirmation hearing. The questions write themselves:
Were you aware, as EPA Administrator, that iGas Holdings is subject to a Commerce Department de facto CCP control determination?
Were you aware that iGas and its affiliated entities have contributed $3,796,954.55 to 156 American political committees while operating under that determination?
Were you aware that the FEC has opened MUR 8439 to investigate whether those contributions violated the foreign national contribution ban at 52 U.S.C. Section 30121?
Did anyone at the EPA discuss with you the national security implications of allocating HFC import allowances to a company determined to be under de facto control of the Chinese Communist Party?
If confirmed as Attorney General, will you commit to a full DOJ review of the FARA implications of Ballard Partners’, Capitol Counsel LLC’s, and Husch Blackwell LLP’s registration of iGas under the Lobbying Disclosure Act rather than the Foreign Agents Registration Act, given that all three firms disclosed the SASAC state ownership chain in their own filings?
If confirmed, will you commit to reviewing the criminal referral potential of the iGas contribution network, including the money laundering theory under 18 U.S.C. Sections 1956 and 1957 that the DOJ successfully applied in United States v. Rivera?
What This Means for the Senate Race
I am running against Ashley Moody for the United States Senate in Florida. I am running because the political machine that appointed her to that seat is the same machine that has been taking CCP money through iGas, laundering foreign government money through Ballard Partners, and obstructing every investigation I have filed.
As I documented in The Same Foreign Money Network That Built Ashley Moody Is on Trial in Miami, the Rivera prosecution is proving in federal court that U.S. subsidiary status does not insulate foreign government money from legal liability, and that concealing and spending those proceeds constitutes money laundering. That is the exact theory underlying MUR 8439.
Bondi’s DOJ was not going to pursue the iGas network. She was a beneficiary of it. She was confirmed as AG with the support of the same Republican senators who have taken iGas contributions. Her committees received iGas money. She was appointed to the Senate by the Governor whose committees received over $687,000 from the iGas/CCP network, including $320,000 accepted after Empower Parents PAC had already disgorged $50,000 in 2019 for accepting prohibited foreign national contributions from the Parnas/Fruman operation.
The question is whether Zeldin’s DOJ would be different. The factual predicate is there. The EPA enforcement record documents the violations. The Commerce Department de facto control determination has been sustained for twelve years across four administrations, beginning with the 2014 SOE finding. Sixteen independent federal proceedings, filings, and determinations confirm the Zhejiang Juhua/SASAC ownership chain. The FEC has opened MUR 8439. The Rivera prosecution has proven the money laundering theory in federal court. The OFAC designation petition I filed documents $3,796,954.55 in contributions to 156 committees and over $410,000 in lobbying fees, targeting Zhejiang Juhua and eleven U.S. affiliates for blocking under Executive Orders 13848 and 13959.
All that is missing is a Department of Justice willing to connect the dots. Zeldin has the institutional knowledge to do it. Whether he has the prosecutorial will is the question that his confirmation process must resolve.
The Record
For those following this investigation, here is the complete documentation trail:
FEC Complaints:
The Rivera Connection:
The CCP Network:
Election Integrity Foundation:
Federal Case References:
- IGas Holdings, Inc. v. EPA, No. 23-1261 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 1, 2025)
- United States v. Rivera (S.D. Fla. 2026)
- FEC MUR 8437 (Moody campaign finance violations)
- FEC MUR 8439 (iGas/Zhejiang Juhua CCP contribution network)
- OFAC Designation Petition: Zhejiang Juhua and 11 U.S. affiliates, $3,796,954.55 to 156 committees, 16 independent federal confirmations of ownership chain
- Commerce Department de facto CCP control determination (2014 SOE finding, sustained 2016, 2017, 2018 CIT opinion, 2018 PTFE extension, 2020 anti-circumvention naming BMP/iGas, 2022-2023 administrative review)
EPA Regulatory Record:
- Federal Register, November 20, 2025: Notice of 2026 HFC Allowance Allocations (documenting iGas enforcement action)
- EPA Enforcement Alert, July 2025: Targeting Illegal Imports of HFC Super-Pollutants
- EPA Proposed Rule, October 3, 2025: Technology Transitions Reconsideration (signed by Zeldin)
- EPA OECA Memorandum, March 12, 2025: HFC Enforcement Priorities
I am transmitting this article, along with the complete MUR 8439 documentation package, to:
- The Senate Judiciary Committee (for the Zeldin confirmation process)
- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee (FARA jurisdiction)
- The House Judiciary Committee
- The Senate Finance Committee (OFAC/Treasury jurisdiction)
The Senate Judiciary Committee has a constitutional obligation to examine whether the next Attorney General of the United States will enforce the foreign national contribution ban against a company his own agency has penalized for regulatory violations, or whether the CCP money pipeline into American elections will continue to operate with impunity.
The record is in their hands. The question is whether they will read it.