The head of a congressional panel says the U.S. failed to take basic steps at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to prevent fraud in a federal aid program intended to help small businesses.
, amid revelations that as much as 20% of the money — tens of billions of dollars — may have been awarded to fraudsters.
Scalise, R-La., said Democrats are undermining the successes, and he asked why the House coronavirus panel Clyburn chairs wasn't looking into the enhanced unemployment insurance program that was plagued by “egregious and unprecedented fraud” and is a “leading contributor” to the high inflation rates.
Clyburn said he supports extending the statute of limitations for this kind of fraud case to give investigators more time to untangle complex potential crimes. Witnesses at the hearing suggested standardizing the data collected by states to make it easier for federal authorities to spot possibly fraudulent patterns.