Who are you going to believe? Reporters at the New York Times or other reporters at the New York Times?
On Friday the Times reported that a Nevada woman pleaded guilty to filing more than 1,200 tax returns “to fraudulently claim Covid-19 tax credits of nearly $100 million.” She allegedly “used the money to gamble at casinos, take vacations and buy luxury cars” and purchase “designer clothing from Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci and Louis Vuitton.”
“Government investigators have struggled to keep up with pandemic-related fraud, focusing their efforts and limited resources on large, multimillion-dollar cases,” the story noted, pointing to an estimate by the Small Business Administration’s inspector general that “more than $200 billion—or at least 17 percent of the pandemic loans that the agency distributed—was awarded to ‘potentially fraudulent actors.’ ”
After the White House pushed back against the Times’s Feb. 11 no-fraud dispatch, Washington’s press corps circled the wagons. Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake wrote an “analysis” trying to debunk Mr. Musk’s fraud claims: “They keep saying they’ve uncovered fraud. But when pressed for evidence, they don’t seem to have much or any.” Perhaps because Mr. Musk could be sued for defamation if he publicly announced specific findings of fraud before they have been investigated and charged.
Mr. Blake dismissed a 2024 Government Accountability Office report that projected $233 billion to $521 billion in federal fraud each year, which he claimed “is just a modeled estimate, not firm evidence.” GAO based its estimate on fraud that had been uncovered. Most isn’t, which is why the auditor recommended ways for the government to prevent and identify fraud—which DOGE is trying to implement.
In any case, Democrats love to cite models that support their political narrative—for instance, the Biden IRS’s estimate that $1 trillion in taxes are being unpaid each year, which were used to justify giving the agency an additional $80 billion to hire more agents. The liberal press didn’t question the IRS’s very questionable model.
Mr. Blake also lectures that most examples of government waste and abuse that the Trump administration cites—e.g., $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala—doesn’t meet the legal definition of fraud. True. Fraud requires a showing of bad intent by the perpetrator and financial harm to the government. Such legal nuance, however, didn’t stop Mr. Blake and others in the liberal press from cheerleading Jack Smith’s dubious Jan. 6 prosecution of Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to defraud the government with his stolen-election claims.
Mr. Blake is right on one point: There is far more government waste and abuse than fraud. Take the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s reimbursing New York City to the tune of $377 a day ($137,605 a year) for sheltering asylum seekers, many in posh hotels. That’s twice as much as the average U.S. household spends in a year.
The Associated Press, however, assures readers that hotels aren’t being paid “luxury rates,” which at “five-star hotels in Manhattan for this coming weekend run from $400 a night to well over $1,000.” What a relief.
Until now, attacking government waste, fraud and abuse was a bipartisan cause championed by the press. The Post last summer took credit for exposing a massive Medicare fraud scheme.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a bill called the Insurance Fraud Accountability Act to crack down on insurance brokers who have gamed ObamaCare subsidies to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year. Only last month Elizabeth Warren could be heard howling about the “fraud-ridden” pandemic employee retention tax credit—the one exploited by the Nevada woman.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the government implemented controls to stop fraud before it happens? This is what DOGE is trying to do. But instead of applauding DOGE’s efforts, the media spin-masters are gaslighting the public. By dismissing and playing down what Americans can see with their own eyes, the press is giving Americans more reason to distrust it.
Americans may logically conclude: If the media says there’s no evidence of government fraud despite abundant evidence to the contrary, might the same be the case with denials of election fraud? Mr. Trump was re-elected in no small part owing to a vacuum of public trust created by a partisan press, which still hasn’t learned its lesson.