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Opening its investigations into Biden’s management on Wednesday, the Republican-led House oversight committee will hold a hearing on COVID relief money spent on the pandemic, which Republicans say was a “recipe for waste, fraud and abuse” and has been ignored by Democrats during Biden’s more than two years in office.
“We owe it to other Americans to shine a light on the largest theft of American taxpayer cash in history,” Republican President James Comer of Kentucky told the committee, according to prepared comments shared with ABC News.
“We want to identify where that cash went, how much it ended up in the hands of scammers or ineligible participants, and what needs to be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Comer is expected to say in his opening remarks.
About $5 trillion has been set aside for the pandemic reaction and recovery under the Trump and Biden administrations, and only about 90 percent of that amount was spent last November, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The committee intends to compare this money, which has been largely awarded in the form of grants, loans, and unemployment insurance, to “ensure that budget has been used to respond to the pandemic, and was not wasted on ineligible beneficiaries or unrelated matters. “, “according to Comer’s statements.
On Wednesday, the committee will hear from witnesses from three nonpartisan teams that tracked COVID-era fraud, each of which uncovered billions of dollars in cash stolen from systems meant to help others at the height of the pandemic.
One such group, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, reported Monday that more than $5 billion in pandemic aid aimed at succeeding small businesses suffering from COVID-19 shutdowns would likely have been gobbled up through scammers. Array
The report found that in the rush to get help, the Small Business Administration gave billions of dollars under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Disaster Loan (EIDL) to applicants who used Social Security numbers that ultimately didn’t fit the user. apply.
“We decided that 69,000 questionable [Social Security numbers] were used to obtain $5. 4 billion in pandemic loans and 175,000 questionable [Social Security numbers] were used in programs that were not paid or approved,” said Michael Horowitz, president of pandemic response. The Accountability Committee (PRAC) is expected to report to the oversight committee on Wednesday, according to prepared comments.
The right checks and balances were not in position in time, the PRAC found, however, there was great pressure to temporarily secure large sums of cash for companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy due to COVID-19 disruptions.
The result has been that many pandemic aid systems have been left open to fraud.
This conclusion will be reiterated by David Smith, the deputy director of the U. S. Secret Service’s Bureau of Investigation. The U. S. Department of State, who oversaw criminal investigations into COVID relief cash fraud.
“My colleagues and I have noticed and fought all pandemic-related fraud to date,” Smith is expected to tell the committee, according to one of his comments shared with ABC News.
“From N-95 mask non-delivery schemes to artificial accounts used in identity theft scams to solicit millions of dollars in loans. say.
And while a “similar dynamic” has been noted with other primary relief efforts and herbal disasters, which leave opportunities ripe for scams and fraud, the money stolen under COVID “was and is substantial,” Smith will say.
The Secret Service seized more than $1. 43 billion in budget received through fraudsters, according to Smith’s comments, with 2,300 investigations into unemployment insurance fraud and 2,900 investigations into loans and grants to businesses.
More than 1,000 more people have also been convicted, forced to return cash or accused of cheating on the programs, and that work is ongoing, according to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro of the Government Accountability Office, who will also testify before the oversight committee on Wednesday.
A little more than 1,000 more people pleaded guilty and another 38 people were convicted of defrauding COVID-19 relief programs, Dodaro is expected to tell the committee.
“We discovered a number of internal control deficiencies in a wide diversity of systems and made recommendations that agencies are implementing,” Dodaro is expected to say.
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