Criminals at home and abroad have taken advantage of the U.S. government’s negligence and incompetence in handling taxpayer money and have absconded with $100 billion in pandemic relief funds, according to the U.S. Secret Service.
That’s “100 billion” with a “B.”
This is surely the most spectacular heist in world history. Forget the crown jewels; these criminals robbed the equivalent of the GDP of some U.S. states.
The money was mostly diverted from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. Another program set up to dole out unemployment assistance funds nationwide was also hit.
But don’t worry. As we speak, our government is working day and night to recover the ill-gotten gains of the criminals and won’t rest until justice is done.
Or at least until lunch break.
More than $2.3 billion in stolen funds have been recovered so far, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 suspects who span the spectrum from individuals to organized groups, according to the agency. The government has shelled out about $3.5 trillion in Covid relief money since early 2020, when the pandemic began.
The Secret Service, which specializes in financial fraud in addition to its better-known role in presidential protection, also announced the appointment of a new national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator to oversee its sprawling investigations into the enormous number of fraud cases resulting from all that theft.
Leftists would probably point out that it’s “only” $100 billion out of $5 trillion. That’s only 2% — not bad when you consider the speed with which these programs were thrown together. This prevented thoughtful reflection on how best to safeguard that money. Or consideration of the dearth of oversight that allowed the thefts to go unnoticed for so long.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for over 29 years and worked some complex fraud investigations for 20 plus years, and I’ve never seen something at this scale,” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Roy Dotson, who was named to the new role at the agency.
Dotson, in an interview with CNBC, said the ease of obtaining the funds has made it easier for criminals.
“There’s no doubt that the programs were easily accessible online. And so, with that, comes the opportunity for bad actors to get into that mix,” he said. “It was necessary to try to get these funds out to people that were truly hurting, and no fault of anybody.”
“No fault of anybody”? Really? That’s music to the ears of the Biden administration and the bureaucrats at SBA. That’s probably why Dotson got the job in the first place. He’s not there to recover money. He’s there to manage the fallout from the spectacular incompetence of politicians and managers.
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The stealing of $100 billion in taxpayer money is never “necessary,” no matter the circumstances or the emergency. The ease with which the thieves made off with such an incredibly large amount of money should result in heads rolling and blood spilled on the floor.
It should, but it won’t. We have a president whose party members are complicit in the heist — at least as far as not being able to secure taxpayer dollars from common criminals and Nigerian princes.
One hundred billion dollars. Another stunning achievement for the Biden administration.
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