Ernst Exposes the Inside Jobs Enabling Fraud

WASHINGTON - Today, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) delivered opening remarks highlighting how fraud in government programs is often enabled by the very people entrusted to safeguard taxpayer dollars.

Ernst welcomed two whistleblowers who faced retaliation for exposing fraud, along with investigative reporter Luke Rosiak, to help Congress end fraud, corruption, and bureaucratic cover-ups and hold government grifters and fraud-fluencers accountable.

Watch Chair Ernst's remarks here.

Ernst's full remarks:

"When Americans send their tax dollars to Washington, they deserve to know the money they worked hard to earn will be carefully safeguarded and responsibly spent.

"Yet, fraudsters are ripping off $1.4 billion of taxpayer money every single day.

"That's a lot of money to go missing without anyone noticing.

"Like I've always said, if you can't find waste, fraud, or abuse in Washington, there can only be one reason: you weren't looking.

"Well, all around the country folks now are looking and what they are seeing is shocking.

"From vacant daycare centers in Minnesota to phony hospices in Los Angeles to bogus home care services in Ohio, taxpayer dollars intended to care for children, the elderly, and the disabled are being stolen by serial criminals and fraud tourists.

"The fleecing is often occurring in plain sight.

"There are even fraud influencers shamelessly sharing their scams on social media.

"One woman, who describes herself as a 'con artist,' flaunted her pricey purchases and lavish lifestyle on TikTok and Instagram, all financed by defrauding the Small Business Administration (SBA) and federal programs for the unemployed.

"An SBA employee actually advertised and promoted her pyramid scheme on social media.

"She recruited accomplices online, who were instructed how to submit bogus applications for small business assistance, which she then used her insider access to approve in exchange for kickbacks.

"She got away with it for years, stealing more than $3.5 million from four different programs.

"A rapper posted a music video on YouTube bragging about how he got rich quickly by filing over a million dollars' worth of bogus unemployment claims-and even flashing the checks in the video.

"Missing a rap video on YouTube is one thing, but bureaucrats handing out benefits are also missing the extensive rap sheets of repeat offenders fraudulently applying for-and receiving-taxpayer money.

"More than 1,300 companies owned by felons were given financial support by the SBA during the pandemic, despite not being eligible for the support due to their criminal histories.

"Other fraudsters are not quite as blatant, but just as obvious, like the Quality Learing Center in Minnesota.

"If you can't even spell 'learning' properly, it's a safe bet that not a lot of learning is actually happening there, but a whole lot of fraud might be.

"The absence of children at the child care center should have been another dead giveaway.

"Yet, Minnesota gave nearly $10 million to the now-closed child care center.

"I am revealing today that the Quality Learing Center also received nearly a quarter-of-a-million dollars from the SBA during the pandemic, including $221,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and a $10,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan.

"I am asking the SBA Office of Inspector General to investigate these loans and recover every last cent.

"The con artists at the Quality Learing Center are going to lear the hard way that fraud no longer pays.

"Cash from PPP was also handed out to other companies with names so outrageous no one could possibly believe they were real, such as Satanic Lives Matter, and others so tasteless I can't even say them out loud.

"Some submitted applications using the names of well-known celebrities and fictional characters, like Charlie Brown and Nancy Drew, and yet were still approved.

"In other cases, the bilking is being done by the very bureaucrats overseeing the benefits.

"Over the years, I've documented countless examples of government employees caught with their hands in the cookie jar, embezzling millions of dollars and abusing their positions for personal gain rather than the public good.

"At the Department of Veterans Affairs, for instance, a service representative who had been previously fired from a police department for extorting drivers at traffic stops, again a police officer who had been exploiting drivers at traffic stops, was shaking down disabled veterans for bribes to 'grease the wheels' to speed up the approval of languishing claims.

"Here's how, this is the actual language folks, here's how a $3,385 kickback paid to him via Venmo was listed on the memo line:

"And this makes my blood boil. I am a veteran. Taking care of veterans is something that we should do, but this is what the veterans submitted through the payment for Venmo to this fraudster. Notice what it says folks.

"I'm going to say it out loud so close your ears if you're going to be offended.

"CROOKED SHIT

"I know, it's appalling. It makes my blood boil.

"Government grift and graft is endless, but the public's patience isn't.

"So why is it allowed to continue?

"Civil servants flagging fraud in Minnesota's meals program were told to look the other way, for years.

"A 25-year employee of the state's Department of Education said the abuse was 'an open secret' and she would get her 'hand slapped' by management for bringing it up.

"As a result, fraudsters were literally allowed to take $250 million from the mouths of children.

"Today, we will hear from two longtime civil servants from Minnesota who will share their own inside stories of how the consequences for flagging fraud can be far greater than committing the actual fraud.

"These taxpayer heroes were bullied by the bureaucracy for doing their jobs too well and daring to call attention to abuses.

"While they faced retaliation, hundreds of their colleagues in Minnesota's fraud-riddled Department of Human Services were rewarded with financial bonuses.

"We will also hear from an investigative journalist who used Medicaid billing information provided by DOGE to go door-to-door, on the ground, in Ohio to uncover fraudulent home care service providers that are serving no one other than themselves.

"When The Daily Wire broke this scandal just a few weeks ago, the state immediately pushed back, saying there are 'extensive oversight mechanisms in place.'

"That sounded a lot like the response in Minnesota where the state insisted the questionable child care centers exposed by YouTuber Nick Shirley were 'operating as expected.'

"And, folks, that is exactly the problem.

"It's the grift that just keeps on giving.

"If someone can't see all the red flags waving here, maybe it's because they are one of the red flags.

"So on an encouraging note, the Vice President's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud is already protecting taxpayers by stopping payments to hundreds of suspicious service providers and chasing down criminals.

"Today's hearing will assist that effort by providing insights from our witnesses into how to spot the warning signs of rip offs and cover-ups, so we can put the fraud-fluencers and government grifters out of business."

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