Watchdog: U.S. Government Issued $5.4 Billion in ‘Potentially Fraudulent Pandemic Loans’

The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), a federal watchdog overseeing pandemic-era spending, found that the U.S. government issued $5.4 billion in “potentially fraudulent pandemic loans,” according to a report released Monday.

PRAC identified 69,323 “questionable” Social Security Numbers in connection with the $5.4 billion in loans.

The report explained:

This Fraud Alert from the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) identifies 69,323 questionable Social Security Numbers (SSNs) used to obtain $5.4 billion from the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (COVID-19 EIDL) program and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). These programs provided nearly $1.2 trillion in assistance to small businesses and their employees affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The committee’s team of data scientists cross-referenced data from more than 33 million EIDL and PPP loan applications to publicly available Social Security Administration (SSA) information before requesting more information from the SSA, who determined that 221,427 SSNs “were either not issued by SSA” or did not “match the name and/or date of birth information” provided by loan applicants.

The committee’s report tracked loans disbursed from April 2020 through October 2022.

The report said that the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) “initial approach to implement these programs quickly made billions of dollars available to millions of borrowers affected by the pandemic, but used few program controls to verify applicants’ eligibility prior to disbursing funds,”

“Although SBA subsequently added certain fraud prevention controls in 2021, the initial implementation of PPP prioritized the speed of disbursing funds rather than scrutiny of applicant eligibility, a trade-off that contributed to widespread fraud,” the report adds.

$5.4 billion in covid aid may have gone to firms using ineligible Social Security numbers, report says https://t.co/mdBVNc9ATI

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 31, 2023

Interestingly, SBA spokeswoman Christina Carr used the report’s findings to criticize former President Donald Trump’s administration, arguing the report is a “prime example of why it was a mistake not to implement additional anti-fraud measures during the Trump administration.”

PRAC’s report comes as the Republican-led House Oversight Committee prepares to hold a hearing on “the rampant waste of taxpayer dollars in COVID relief programs” on Wednesday.

“I don’t think history will be kind to the PPP loan program,” Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said Monday.

PRAC Chair Michael Horowitz, who is also the Department of Justice Inspector General, is set to testify before the Committee. Horowitz will be joined by Comptroller General Gene Dodaro and U.S. Secret Service Office of Investigations assistant director David M. Smith.

When Comer announced the hearing, he said the Oversight Committee owes it to Americans “to identify how hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent under the guise of pandemic relief were lost to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.”

“For the past two years, Democrats in the Administration and Congress have spent far too much time pushing money out the door and far too little time conducting meaningful oversight of how that money is being spent.” Comer said.

“That changes with our House Republican majority. Under Republican leadership, the Oversight Committee is returning to its primary duty to root out waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the federal government and hold President Biden accountable.

Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.