Labor I.G.: Allowing Funds to Be Retrieved Online ‘Opens the Doors to Fraud’

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “The Bottom Line,” Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito discussed COVID-era unemployment fraud and stated that when “when you take down guardrails and when you have no accountability and when you don’t allow people to check I.D. and you allow these funds to be retrieved virtually and online, it opens the doors to fraud.”

D’Esposito said, “[I]n this case, I think that a lot of that money that went to the states, what we’ve seen over the past couple of years is many leaders, elected leaders tried to say that they’re being compassionate, but what I always say is that you can still have compassion, but you can follow the rules. And when you take down guardrails and when you have no accountability and when you don’t allow people to check I.D. and you allow these funds to be retrieved virtually and online, it opens the doors to fraud. And that’s why we are focusing on recovering this nearly $1 billion.”

He continued, “And one of the things that we’re facing, and I know that Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) of the Ways and Means Committee has a bill that passed the House to extend the statute of limitations, because much of the statue of limitations are about to expire, and that’s headed over to the Senate so that our great investigators and auditors can continue to do this work, to root out the waste, fraud, and abuse, and get this taxpayer money back to the American people.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett