Trump Administration Investigating Google, Verizon for DEI Fraud

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration is using a Civil War-era law targeting fraud to go after Google, Verizon and other major corporations for implementing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in their hiring and promotion policies.
According to a Dec. 29 report featured in The Wall Street Journal, federal investigators have issued demands for documents and internal information from several companies, including Google and Verizon, regarding their consideration of DEI initiatives in their hiring and promotion practices.
Though the companies in question have already abandoned their DEI initiatives – Google in early February and Verizon in May – the administration is arguing that they did not comply quickly enough. Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting both public and private institutions from implementing DEI programs on his first day in office following his second inauguration, on Jan. 20, 2025.
The False Claims Act was signed by President Abraham Lincolon in March 1863 in response to unscrupulous government contractors that had sold the Union Army faulty weapons, sickly horses and rancid rations. The law, also known as the “Lincoln Law,” allows a whistleblower to sue unscrupulous contractors on behalf of the government, and thereby to claim a percentage of whatever government money is recovered.
The False Claims Act has been used to sue federal contractors that have committed Medicaid/Medicare fraud, or which have overbilled the government, or sold the government faulty equipment.
The Department of Justice now claims that companies that contract with the government, and which have considered diversity when hiring or promoting employees, have committed fraud against the government. The False Claims Act has never before been applied to enforce policy objectives; a legal analyst for the Wall Street Journal called the DOJ’s initiative a “novel interpretation” of the law.
The DOJ is arguing that the companies in question, which receive federal contracts, have defrauded the government by using federal funds to support illegal diversity quotas or by fabricating proof of compliance with Trump’s anti-DEI executive order.
Over the summer, the DOJ began using the False Claims Act to go after Harvard University and other colleges and universities which receive government funding and which, as the government put it, “engage in unlawful discrimination through its admission process” by considering race as a factor.
Now, by targeting some of the largest and most lucrative companies in the nation, the DOJ could potentially claim billions under the law. In 2024, under the Biden administration, the DOJ recovered more than $2.9 billion in settlements and judgements under the False Claims Act.
“The administration is clearly signaling that DEI is no longer just a cultural debate, but a financial and legal liability,” an industry consultant who requested anonymity due to ongoing litigation told Black Enterprise. “By framing these initiatives as potential fraud against the taxpayer, they are putting every major federal contractor on notice.”