House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., released a report Tuesday that he says will show "massive" unemployment fraud that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's going to show that as much as 20% of the funds were issued fraudulently," Comer said during an appearance on Newsmax's "Wake Up America" on Tuesday. "And even more concerning, the Biden-Harris administration knows this, yet they've done absolutely nothing to, number one, hold anyone accountable, and, number two, to fix the problem. And even worse, they want to make this program permanent."
Comer said many of the software programs used by states for their unemployment claims were outdated and "easily hacked by fraudsters," enabling the theft of taxpayer dollars.
"We know that people were paid unemployment claims in excess of what they were actually making when they were working," he said. "And this is more evidence that the Biden-Harris administration just doesn't care about how our tax dollars are being spent. We're spending deficit money up here in Washington like crazy and yet we know and we can prove all this waste, fraud and abuse, but the Biden-Harris administration doesn't care. They just want to keep spending taxpayer dollars that are being borrowed from China."
The Kentucky congressman called the situation "very concerning" and said the report highlights "many easily-fixed remedies" that can solve the problem going forward.
"We found that some states hired people — they didn't do thorough background checks — to process claims that had been convicted of identity theft," he said. "So, obviously we need to have background checks of who's actually working on the claims. We found that there were many state employees and federal employees who were involved in schemes with fraudsters because they knew there was so much money going out. Everyone was panicked because of COVID. There was an opportunity ripe for fraud. This needs to be remedied.
"People need to be held accountable for their roles in allowing this to happen and we need to update our technology," Comer continued. "Many of these states that administer these unemployment programs have old software that is very susceptible to be hacked and to allow for fraudulent payments. Also, and this is the biggest thing, they need to show proof of work to receive the unemployment benefits. I mean, that is something that wasn't even required to receive unemployment benefits. All you had to do was go online and apply and the checks started coming."
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Nicole Wells ✉
Nicole Wells, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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