{"id":5948,"date":"2020-11-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/audit-michigan-may-have-paid-billions-in-fraudulent-jobless-claims-gretchen-whitmer-administration-hit-with-kickback-allegations\/"},"modified":"2020-11-26T18:28:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T18:28:08","slug":"audit-michigan-may-have-paid-billions-in-fraudulent-jobless-claims-gretchen-whitmer-administration-hit-with-kickback-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/audit-michigan-may-have-paid-billions-in-fraudulent-jobless-claims-gretchen-whitmer-administration-hit-with-kickback-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"Audit: Michigan May Have Paid Billions in &#8216;Fraudulent&#8217; Jobless Claims; Gretchen Whitmer Administration Hit with &#8216;Kickback&#8217; Allegations"},"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%2Faudit-michigan-may-have-paid-billions-in-fraudulent-jobless-claims-gretchen-whitmer-administration-hit-with-kickback-allegations%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=5948&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>Fox 17 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox17online.com\/news\/problem-solvers\/audit-michigan-may-have-paid-out-1-5-billion-in-fraudulent-unemployment-claims-director-reportedly-said-it-was-not-a-high-priority\">reported<\/a> on the investigation of the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) conducted by Deloitte: \u201cThe company interviewed 24 UIA and Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) personnel including executive leadership. They reviewed documents, emails, charts, polices, and federal and state UI guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigan.gov\/documents\/leo\/SoM_UIA_Forensic_Review_11.25.2020_708891_7.pdf?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery\">found<\/a> the agency paid $22.9 billion in claims from March 15, 2020, to October 23, 2020, as the unemployment rate skyrocketed from 3.6 percent to 24 percent amid Whitmer\u2019s coronavirus lockdown orders.<\/p>\n<p>The analysis found states were warned in May of \u201ca well-organized Nigerian fraud ring exploiting the Pandemic to commit fraud against various state UI programs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Deloitte discovered there may have been \u201cinternal fraud\u201d by agency employees and contractors \u201cin exchange for payments and kickbacks\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On May 27, 2020, UIA estimated that $1.5 billion of higher-risk claims (claims that otherwise may have been detected by Fraud Manager) had potentially been paid prior to running through Fraud Manager. Additionally, UIA had identified multiple instances of potential internal fraud by UIA personnel and contractors using their access to UIA procedures and systems to fraudulently approve\/disburse millions of dollars in federal and state UI claims to ineligible claimants in exchange for payments and kickbacks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigan.gov\/documents\/leo\/SoM_UIA_Forensic_Review_11.25.2020_708891_7.pdf?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery\">is addressed<\/a> to Tricia Foster, Whitmer\u2019s chief operating officer. Deloitte did not interview Foster, according to the report. Nor did the company talk to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>John Arundel, Head of Claims, UIA<\/li>\n<li>Jeffrey Frost, Special Fraud Advisor<\/li>\n<li>Stacia Latona, Investigations Manager<\/li>\n<li>Susie Wiseman, Claims Department Analyst, UIA<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Frost, the report said, conducted the interview with Jeff Donofrio, director of LEO, and provided \u201ca verbal summary\u201d to the company, which \u201cdid not have an opportunity to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is not clear in the report why the individuals, including Foster, were not interviewed and whether the employees refused or were deemed not relevant to the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>The report found former UIA Director Steve Gray downplayed the potential of fraud when he told \u201cUIA personnel on a call that fraud prevention was not a high priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo legislator ever said, \u2018UIA change your fraud detection systems in order to pay claims quicker\u2019. It\u2019s actually the opposite,\u201d state Rep. Matt Hall told Fox 17.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe department\u2019s actions contributed to this widespread fraud. You know, now people understand why we\u2019ve been talking about this for so long,\u201d Hall, who leads the Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of \u201cThe Kyle Olson Show,\u201d syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays\u2013download full<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/1214651\"><em>podcast episodes<\/em><\/a><em>. Follow him on<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/parler.com\/profile\/KyleOlson4\/posts\"><em>Parler<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fox 17 reported on the investigation of the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) conducted by Deloitte: \u201cThe company interviewed 24 UIA and Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) personnel including executive leadership. They reviewed documents, emails, charts, polices, and federal and state UI guidance.\u201d The report found the agency paid $22.9 billion in claims &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2273504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5948","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=5948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}