{"id":1972372,"date":"2023-07-13T18:25:01","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T22:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-official-a-no-show-for-hearing-on-200-billion-in-pandemic-relief-fraud\/"},"modified":"2023-07-13T18:27:33","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T22:27:33","slug":"biden-official-a-no-show-for-hearing-on-200-billion-in-pandemic-relief-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-official-a-no-show-for-hearing-on-200-billion-in-pandemic-relief-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden official skips hearing on $200B pandemic relief fraud."},"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\">18<\/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%2Fbiden-official-a-no-show-for-hearing-on-200-billion-in-pandemic-relief-fraud%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=1972372&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--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0713\/3f15c77c-1e2f-42e3-8bde-b89282395d09\/audio.mp3?length=5661549&#038;duration=472\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Administrator Guzman Declines Testifying at House Small Business Committee Hearing<\/h2>\n<p>Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Isabella Guzman declined to testify at the July 13 House Small Business Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gI14xRyHhKs\">hearing<\/a> seeking to understand why her staff found $160 billion less waste and fraud in $1.2 trillion in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aoc-may-get-key-spot-on-oversight-committee-report\/\" title=\"AOC May Get Key Spot On Oversight Committee: Report\">federal pandemic spending<\/a> than did the agency\u2019s internal watchdog.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), the House panel\u2019s chairman, said in his opening statement as he explained the empty chair at the witness table, \u201cAs you can see by her empty seat, she declined the [committee\u2019s] offer. You would think that a report from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-official-a-no-show-for-hearing-on-200-billion-in-pandemic-relief-fraud\/\" title=\"Biden official skips hearing on 0B pandemic relief fraud.\">nonpartisan watchdog claiming hundreds<\/a> of billions of dollars were disbursed to criminals through the SBA would warrant her showing up for this committee today, but that obviously isn\u2019t the case for Administrator Guzman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christine Saah Nazer, a spokesperson for Ms. Guzman, told The Epoch Times, however, that \u201cAdministrator Guzman is on the road all week long. This is a simple scheduling conflict. She is in New York today and will be in Houston tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Nazer also referred to a statement by another SBA spokesman, Han Nguyen, who declared that \u201cwe strongly disagree with the IG\u2019s projected fraud total of $200 billion suggested by the IG report. It is vital to clarify that 86 percent of the likely fraud in the PPP and COVID-EIDL programs occurred in the first nine months of those programs when, as the SBA IG has often noted, the rush to get funds out led to unwise decisions to pull down anti-fraud guardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The hearing was prompted by dramatically different reports made public in June by Ms. Guzman\u2019s office and the Office of Inspector-General (IG) at SBA. Ms. Guzman\u2019s staff concluded that $36 billion was lost to waste or fraud in the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, the IG reported that SBA \u201cdisbursed approximately $1.2 trillion of [EIDL] and [PPP] funds. Using OIG\u2019s investigative casework, prior OIG reporting, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/docs-reveal-facebook-and-twitter-collaborated-with-dhs-and-fbi-to-police-so-called-disinfo\/\" title=\"Docs Reveal Facebook and Twitter Collaborated With DHS and FBI to Police So-Called \"Disinfo\"\">advanced data analytics<\/a>, and additional review procedures, we estimate SBA disbursed more than $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDLs and PPP loans.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5397394\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n        <a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/07\/13\/id5397394-07132023-DSC08064-Roger-Williams0A-Andy-Barr0A-Andy-Barr-1200x800.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a><br \/>\n    <\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThis estimate represents approximately <b>17 percent<\/b> of disbursed funds in these programs\u2014specifically, more than $136 billion COVID-19 EIDLs and $64 billion in PPP funds. OIG published these findings on June 27, 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The contradictory reports were both issued on June 27.<\/p>\n<p>Hannibal \u201cMike\u201d Ware was appointed by President Donald Trump as the SBA IG in 2018. There are 72 IGs appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to investigate, expose and help prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs. The IG system was created in 1978 by Congress and President Jimmy Carter.<\/p>\n<p>The SBA IG\u2019s investigations have resulted in more than $9 billion in dollar accomplishments, which includes investigative recoveries, fines, and forfeitures, as well as review findings of disallowed costs. OIG oversight of the PPP and the COVID-19 EIDL program has resulted in 1,050 indictments, 827 arrests, and 553 convictions as of June 2023. Also, over $8 billion in EIDL funds have been returned to SBA by financial institutions and another $20 billion by borrowers.<\/p>\n<p>When Mr. Williams asked Mr. Ware if it is possible that his investigators and auditors over-estimated the actual amount of waste and fraud, as claimed by Ms. Guzman, the IG responded, saying, \u201cI believe that as more and more datasets become available to us, the number could be recalibrated, it could go up, it could go down, but I am telling you that we believe we have a cap on where that fraud level is and that is a little over $200 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5397411\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n        <a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2023\/07\/13\/id5397411-EpochImages-2559416355-1200x800.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a><br \/>\n    <\/figure>\n<p>Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), the committee\u2019s ranking member, told Mr. Ware that SBA officials contend 86 percent of the funds lost to waste and fraud were disbursed under Mr. Trump. Mr. Ware agreed that most of the fraud occurred during the first nine months of the two programs.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Velazquez pressed Mr. Ware on the gulf between the two reports, telling him that \u201cyour estimate of potential fraud is much higher than SBA\u2019s estimate. In fact, SBA expressed concerns that your approach contains serious flaws that seriously over-estimate the fraud and misleads the public.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Ware claimed in response that \u201cSBA is mistaken, and I think they know that. There are two main reasons for that. One, we are the independent watchdog. We have demonstrated that during the pandemic and long before that. We are one of the original 12 offices of inspector-general. Secondly, we have access to datasets that they didn\u2019t have access to \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Ware tried to continue his second reason but was cut off by Ms. Velazquez, who then argued that the SBA review, which allegedly included \u201cmanual\u201d examinations of more than three million applications, was more effective than the methods used by the IG office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will assert that SBA\u2019s manual review does not meet the qualifications for a manual<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Isabella Guzman refused to testify at the House Small Business Committee hearing on July 13. The hearing aimed to investigate why the agency&#8217;s internal watchdog discovered $160 billion less waste and fraud in $1.2 trillion federal pandemic spending compared to Guzman&#8217;s staff. Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), the committee&#8217;s chairman, expressed his concerns about the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":1972373,"comment_status":"open","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":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1972372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"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\/1972372","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\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1972372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1972373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1972372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1972372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1972372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}