-@TH3WH17ERABB17- -Q- ---TIME TO SHOW THE WORLD---

[guyfriday]

How do you cover up corruption? By punishing those that do what you do and making it public.

Cracking down on pandemic aid fraud, DOJ claws back $1.4 billion and charges 3,500 people (yahoo.com)

 WASHINGTON – During the last three years, the Justice Department’s COVID-19 Enforcement Task Force has charged more than 3,500 people with federal crimes, recovered more than $1.4 billion in stolen pandemic funds and reached more than 400 civil settlements and judgments, officials said Tuesday.
 
White House officials and lawmakers used the announcement as a springboard to propose legislation to provide more funding for anti-fraud enforcement, extend the statute of limitations on prosecuting crimes and improving government databases to better detect when payments shouldn't be made.
 
“We will continue our efforts to investigate and prosecute pandemic relief fraud and to recover the assets that have been stolen from American taxpayers,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters Tuesday.

Now let's see who or what is being targeted?

 
A sample of fraud investigations includes:

• Federal charges unveiled in September 2022 against 47 people accused of siphoning $250 million from a coronavirus pandemic relief program designed to provide meals for children, in “a brazen scheme of staggering proportions.”
  
• A sweep of suspects including doctors, marketers and manufacturers of fake vaccination cards in April 2022 resulted in charges against 21 people accused with $149 million in false billings and theft from government programs.
  
• Fifteen of the largest and hardest-hit states awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in sole-sourced, non-competitive awards went to vendors for items such as masks that have been accused of defrauding taxpayers, a USA TODAY investigation found.

What about the state governments that used this Covid money for other purposes? Isn't that by definition fraud? 
As an example:
Washington state diverted $340M in federal COVID funds to immigrants, including via $1,000 checks (msn.com)

 
Anew report is highlighting how federal COVID funds were used in Washington state to give $1,000 checks to illegal immigrants who were ineligible to receive federal economic impact payments during the pandemic due to their immigration status.
 
The report, by the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), points to money administered by the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF), which was created by the American Rescue Plan Act and was intended to help state and local governments with their response and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Washington state received $4.4 billion in funding overall from that program.

Will the DOJ go after state governments that defrauded the US Tax Payers? Probably not would be my guess, but back to the opening article;
This gave me a chuckle given how hell bent these people are about Voter-ID.

 Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chair of the Finance Committee, said another important provision would create a Social Security number verification system to thwart identity theft.
 
“This is really an epidemic," Wyden said. "Millions of Americans have been victims of identity theft."

This is reaction is pure comedic gold. Anyways the Biden's DOJ is stepping on their plans to go after anyone that wrongfully took money from their covid grifting scams. When will they be held to the same standards, they force us to be marched to?