■ The Trump administration increased scrutiny of asbestos trust funds.

Administration concerned about fraudulent claim increases

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has stepped up scrutiny of asbestos trust funds, concerned that the pots of money intended to help people exposed to the hazardous substance are being depleted by fraudulent claims, harming victims, businesses and the government.

The Justice Department in the past two months has demanded trust documents as part of a civil investigation, opposed the creation of another trust it said lacked sufficient safeguards and argued against the appointment of a lawyer it said was too conflicted to represent victims.

The actions take aim at a system that over decades has paid out billions of dollars to the sick and cancer-stricken, but that critics say is opaque and prone to fraud and manipulation by well-connected lawyers.

“We have an interest in fraud and consumer protection, so if there is fraud happening out there that is cognizable under federal law, that’s the type of thing the Justice Department tends to get interested in,” acting Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio said in an interview.

But plaintiffs’ lawyers and asbestos victims’ advocates argue that there is scant proof of widespread fraud, particularly for a system that has accommodated millions of claims.

Lawyers for asbestos victims say the process enables people to obtain compensation for catastrophic illness without drawn-out lawsuits.

“There is incredible irony in the fact that an industry that covered up the dangers of a known carcinogen for decades, leading to the ongoing deaths of 15,000 Americans a year, is now claiming that its victims are committing systemic fraud against the trusts — even though no court has ever found evidence of such fraud,” Peter Knudsen, spokesman for the plaintiffs’ lawyers group American Association for Justice, said in a statement.