Report: GOP Seeks Answers From Garland on COVID Fraud

Facts

• House Republicans, according to NBC News, have called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to release documents and information detailing the extent of COVID relief funds lost to fraud "by international or overseas actors and criminal organizations.”¹
• NBC published the findings on Tuesday, citing a letter from the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.²
• The letter from subcommittee chairman Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) comes one week after a new Labor Dept. report estimated that $47.3B, or 40%, of the $131.6B pandemic unemployment program was lost to fraud or unsupported payment from March 2020 to September 2021.¹
• Meanwhile, the inspector general of the Small Business Administration (SBA) said as much as $200B was stolen from the agency’s programs.¹
• Although the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) has opened a probe into COVID fraud, it’s unclear if the investigation is strictly domestic, with Wenstrup claiming that an estimated $280B was stolen from intended recipients, with half allegedly going to criminals in Russia, China, and Nigeria.³
• The DOJ has brought criminal charges against 3.2K defendants, estimated to make up $1.7B of losses, while seizing $1.4B.¹

Sources: ¹NBC, ²Yahoo News, and ³The Washington Examiner.

Narratives

• Republican narrative, as provided by PJ Media. Pres. Biden’s administration has failed the basic duty of safeguarding against fraud. The DOJ talks a big game about the billions of dollars it recovers, but that amount of money is just a drop in the bucket. Various agencies were bled dry, and the slow-moving administration doesn’t seem to care.
• Democratic narrative, as provided by Bloomberg Law. The DOJ is working diligently to get to the bottom of the large criminal operations that defrauded the US of billions of dollars. The DOJ is prosecuting hundreds of people and recovering billions of dollars. Anyone considering defrauding the US government will now think twice thanks to this crackdown.