Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is one of the bravest champions of liberty that this country has. While others have cowered and fallen in line for big government lies and cover-ups, Paul stood his ground.
Now, he’s going after fraud that occurred on a massive scale with pandemic relief payouts.
He wants to know why so many businesses and individuals got massive amounts of money that they shouldn’t have or that didn’t even go to a real destination.
What Are the Accusations?
Paul, along with fellow GOP Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, is heading up this investigation.
They want to know where $5.4 billion of loans went during the official state of emergency that Biden declared. This included unlocking very handsome loans to many businesses and payouts to many people without strong background checks.
Specifically, Ernst and Paul have contacted the US government’s SBA (Small Business Administration) to find out the “extent” of fraudulent payouts they discovered in the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program).
According to Congress’ Pandemic Responsibility Accountability Cmte. (PRAC), the PPP program was widely abused as was another form of easy loans given to those who experienced an “economic disaster” (EIDL loans).
PRAC found over 221,000 applications for benefits that weren’t even using real Social Security numbers. What’s worse is more than 69,000 of the fakes were given money anyway under EIDL and PPP: over $5.4 billion in free loans and handouts, in fact.
That’s from 33 million files that PRAC looked at. The total number is likely to be much worse. Paul and Ernst want to know exactly how deep this rabbit hole goes.
SCOOP: @RandPaul leads investigation w/ @SenJoniErnst into 'disturbing' $5.4B in pandemic fraud as Biden moves to end COVID emergencyhttps://t.co/ws86BSS6ie
— Kelly Laco (@kelly_laco) January 31, 2023
Who Did All That Money Go To?
Biden says he will be ending the national COVID emergency on May 11 of this year. This will stop the flow of many of these relief funds and free loans. Still, Paul and Ernst want to uncover the fraud and waste that’s already been happening.
In total, the Congressional Government Accountability Office estimates as much as $45 billion total went to individuals and businesses who didn’t need it or were defrauding the system outright.
Trump and the Biden administration forked out more than $878 billion between the spring of 2020 and the summer of last year to pay people who lost work during COVID.
They did this to avoid a full economic depression, contributing massively to our current inflation crisis. Finding out a solid chunk of that $878 billion may have been fraudulent (5.1% of it, to be specific) is highly disturbing.
Some of those fraudsters are “churches’ & non-profit “ministries.” I'm against all handouts & bailouts including for Covid relief. Especially for churches that sinfully closed for Caesar during Covid. Why should taxpayers have to pay for their cowardness. https://t.co/d9R05L3A31
— Bill Rhetts (@BillRhetts) February 1, 2023
The Bottom Line
Tucker Carlson’s book “Ship of Fools” really sums up the state we’re in. Deranged globalists are running this country into the ground and we’re supposed to sit here and not ask any questions.
Good for Paul and Ernst for digging deeper into this. They shouldn’t stop until every red cent is accounted for and every bit of it is paid back or seized in assets.