Photo: Alamy
The Trump administration’s Justice Department has stopped all nonessential federal funding to Maine’s Department of Corrections after the state housed a man in a women’s prison, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday.
Andrew Balcer, 26, a man who identifies as a woman, was convicted of double murder and is housed in a Maine women’s prison.
“We pulled all nonessential funding from the Department of Corrections in Maine because they were allowing a man in a women’s prison,” Bondi said Tuesday. “A giant, 6-foot-1, 245-pound guy, who committed a double murder with a knife, stabbed his parents to death and the family dog, and he identified as a woman, so they were letting him be housed in a female prison.”
“No longer,” she added. “We will pull your funding. We will protect women in prison.”
The financial impact includes over $1 million in federal funding.
The Trump administration’s Department of Agriculture previously blocked Title IX funding to Maine, citing the state’s refusal to comply with “equal opportunity to women and girls in educational programs.”
The decision follows Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills’ refusal to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to protect girls’ sports by restricting biological males who identify as females from competition.
“In order to continue to receive taxpayer dollars from USDA, the state of Maine must demonstrate compliance with Title IX which protects female student athletes from having to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males,” Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote in the letter.
“In addition, USDA has launched a full review of grants awarded by the Biden Administration to the Maine Department of Education. Many of these grants appear to be wasteful, redundant, or otherwise against the priorities of the Trump Administration. USDA will not stand for the Biden Administration’s bloated bureaucracy and will instead focus on a Department that is farmer-first and without a leftist social agenda,” Rollins continued.
The USDA stated that it stands behind the president’s commitment to ensuring taxpayer dollars are used in accordance with federal law. In alignment with recent actions by the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services to enforce Title IX, the USDA will pause—and, if necessary, terminate—certain nonessential funding in Maine if ongoing Title IX violations are not resolved to the satisfaction of the Federal Government.
