Congressional Republicans, eager to recoup fraudulent COVID-19 pandemic aid, are pushing back against the Biden administration for stonewalling efforts to recover payments to criminals and denying the magnitude of the crime.
The House Small Business Committee under Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) marked up several bills Thursday — including two dealing with pandemic fraud that, according to the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General, potentially amount to at least $200 billion in taxpayer funds. Biden’s SBA downplayed the fraud and claimed fraudulent payments amount to only $34 billion — a massive discrepancy from the SBA Inspector General’s report.
In addition to denying the magnitude of the issue, the SBA is making it difficult to report fraud despite the law. In authorizing the aid, Congress required the SBA to include an easily accessible link on its website to report suspected fraud and other measures to ensure it can be easily…