{"id":115767,"date":"2021-02-02T13:05:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T18:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=115767"},"modified":"2021-02-02T13:42:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T18:42:04","slug":"joe-bidens-choice-to-oversee-covid-unemployment-benefits-lost-600-million-in-coronavirus-relief-to-nigerian-scammers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/joe-bidens-choice-to-oversee-covid-unemployment-benefits-lost-600-million-in-coronavirus-relief-to-nigerian-scammers\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden\u2019s Choice To Oversee COVID Unemployment Benefits Lost $600 Million In Coronavirus Relief To Nigerian Scammers"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjoe-bidens-choice-to-oversee-covid-unemployment-benefits-lost-600-million-in-coronavirus-relief-to-nigerian-scammers%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=115767&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The woman picked by President Joe Biden to oversee the federal unemployment benefits that are part of the president\u2019s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal previously lost hundreds of millions of dollars in coronavirus relief funds to Nigerian scammers.<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg Law <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bloomberglaw.com\/daily-labor-report\/trump-dol-hire-aims-to-burrow-in-as-biden-taps-employment-head\">reported<\/a> that Washington state Employment Security Department (ESD) Commissioner Suzi LeVine on Monday began her job as \u201cinterim political head of the Employment and Training Administration,\u201d the federal workforce agency that helps oversee unemployment benefits in the coronavirus relief bills. As The Federalist <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/02\/01\/bidens-swampy-pick-to-run-unemployment-lost-millions-of-dollars-in-pandemic-aid-to-nigerian-fraudsters\/\">reported<\/a>, LeVine\u2019s history in Washington state make her ill-suited for the position, considering that her department lost $600 million in coronavirus relief funds to a long-known Nigerian fraud group known as \u201cScattered Canary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccording to the U.S. Secret Service, Washington was the \u2018primary state targeted\u2019 by the \u2018well-organized Nigerian fraud ring exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to commit large-scale fraud against state unemployment insurance programs.\u2019 The group, which historically targeted other American aid funds such as for students, Social Security, and disaster relief, used information from other breaches in Washington to create bogus joblessness claims and hike up the system\u2019s number of claims,\u201d the Federalist reported. \u201cUnder LeVine, ESD, overwhelmed with a sudden and \u2018unusual\u2019 surge in state requests for financial help despite the falling national number, quickly pushed through the payouts for the claims, intentionally and knowingly skipping the identity verification processes that usually occurs during an unemployment payout \u2018waiting week.\u2019 As a result, LeVine later reluctantly admitted the fraud and temporarily suspended all benefit payments for a couple of days, completely cutting off legitimate claimants as the department and law enforcement began the financial cleanup and attempted recovery from the bogus claims.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Washington conducted five audits of the missing fund, the first finding that a software liability allowed Scattered Canary to fraudulently claim hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid. Washington was able to recover $357 million of what was lost, but that still left $243 million missing from the fund. LeVine also had to announce that other fraudsters took $1.6 million in state aid.<\/p>\n<p>Not only was LeVine the head of the department when these failures occurred, but she allegedly tried to interfere with the audits. The Seattle Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/seattle-news\/politics\/washington-auditor-warns-unemployment-agency-on-interference-with-audits-into-massive-fraud\/\">reported<\/a> that State Auditor Pat McCarthy said LeVine imposed \u201csignificant constraints\u201d on her attempts to audit the ESD. McCarthy said LeVine tried to limit \u201cinterviews with key ESD employees and delay[ed] access to important documents.\u201d McCarthy eventually had to threaten to report LeVine\u2019s \u201cmanagement interference\u201d if she was not able to conclude her audit.<\/p>\n<p>LeVine was not fired for the scandal and is instead being rewarded with a position, possibly temporary, in the Biden administration. It should be noted that LeVine donated \u201chundreds of thousands of dollars to Biden\u2019s 2020 campaign and other \u2018Democratic causes\u2019 and served as a deputy national finance chair for the Democratic National Committee with her husband in 2017,\u201d the Federalist reported.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The woman picked by President Joe Biden to oversee the federal unemployment benefits that are part of the president\u2019s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal previously lost hundreds of millions of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892469,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4848,3706,3925,4127,4843,4846],"class_list":["post-115767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-benefits","tag-bidens","tag-choice","tag-covid","tag-oversee","tag-unemployment"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}