Just weeks after President Donald Trump said on social media that he would direct his administration to investigate California for widespread fraud, Republicans within the delegation are all in on an effort to crack down on the misuse and abuse of federal funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople across the country are rightly outraged by the fraud that has been discovered in the state of Minnesota. But for those of us in California, we have almost become desensitized to it, because every time there has been an independent audit, it seems, of any program in California, what is discovered is fraud on a scale that dwarfs anything that was discovered in Minnesota,\u201d railed Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., in a floor speech this week.<\/p>\n
Kiley wrote a letter to the Government Accountability Office Tuesday, asking for a study of \u201cthe amount of waste, fraud and abuse California has fallen victim to.\u201d<\/p>\n
He cited a number of instances in which fraud occurred in the state, including billions during the COVID-19 pandemic and real estate executives pocketing millions from programs intended for the homeless.<\/p>\n
And Kiley isn\u2019t alone. Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., introduced legislation this week to create a Federal Fraud Interagency Task Force. The Government Accountability Office reported last year that during the 2024 fiscal year, the federal government paid out about $162 billion in improper payment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is put real teeth and go after investigating the fraud, waste and abuse that is occurring across the nation,\u201d Kim told Spectrum News in an interview Thursday. \u201cThis legislation calls for making sure that our current investigations are fragmented \u2014 everybody is tripping over one agency doing one thing, the other agency doing one thing \u2014 nobody is coordinating it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim\u2019s legislation, if passed, directs the president to establish the task force within 90 days and appoint a director and members of the task force within 180 days. Per the legislation, the director must have 10 years of experience in fraud investigation or federal law enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not looking for political appointees; we\u2019re looking for people with great experience that have done this kind of work investigating fraud across the country,\u201d she explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The president has cited California in recent months as a hotbed of fraud, even writing on social media that he was directing an investigation into California for that very reason. But so far, few details have emerged.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said protecting taxpayer dollars is a major priority of his, but that the approach of the Trump administration is troubling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a whole team that protects and defends those tax dollars and roots out that fraud. It holds people accountable. But the lie here is that the government of California is somehow in on the fraud. And that\u2019s dangerous, reckless, wild, wrong,\u201d said Bonta. \u201cThere are some criminal groups who try to defraud the government. The government is a victim in those situations, and we must harden our programs from being able to be taken advantage of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bonta\u2019s office said that over the past decade, the California DOJ has recovered nearly $2.7 billion in fraud against the state and conducted 2,490 criminal investigations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Thursday,\u00a0Bonta announced the arrests of and filing of multiple felony charges against seven individuals for hospice fraud in Monterey County.<\/p>\n
Kim said she commends the work Bonta has done, but placed the blame for fraud on the \u201cfailed policies of Sacramento and Gov. Newsom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt pains me to say California has become the fraud capital of the nation. And we have a governor who is traveling around the nation, around the world with the goal of running for president in 2028. God forbid that happens, then he\u2019s going to take the fraud circus to the White House,\u201d she sniped.<\/p>\n
Some Democrats we spoke with said they welcomed an investigation, such as Rep. Lou Correa, who said he thinks \u201ceverybody should be investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome full transparency everywhere, not just California, though,\u201d he caveated.<\/p>\n
Rep. Robert Garcia, who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, told Spectrum News that he thinks \u201ceveryone supports making government better, and everyone supports us cutting any sort of tax wasted money happening in government.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Garcia called these broad accusations of fraud \u201cpretty unfounded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to take away social services from working-class people and people that are poor in their suffering, I think is wrong,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s focus on a real government, on solutions, not on attacking people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just weeks after President Donald Trump said on social media that he would direct his administration to investigate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80172,80173,13359,5997,12861,80171,80168,7,9,8,75275,80170,6634,13358,5999,136,5996,80169],"class_list":["post-166158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-all-regions","tag-app-dc-bureau","tag-app-for-your-consideration","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-national-politics","tag-app-us-world-news","tag-around-the-us","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-cassie-semyon","tag-dc-digest","tag-los-angeles-app-region","tag-nnt","tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-washington-dc-bureau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}