'A tiny drop in the bucket': DOGE claims of fraud fall apart under WaPo scrutiny
Here’s the excerpt that prompted me to take the photo on top of the page:
Despite claims from Donald Trump, Elon Musk and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has uncovered massive fraud being committed against taxpayers, an analysis by the Washington Post called the assertions all sizzle and no steak.
In an analysis by the WaPo's Aaron Blake, he made a distinction between accusations of criminal fraud –– of which there is little evidence –– and waste which has long been an obsession on both sides of the aisle.
More importantly, he noted that Trump and his allies are conflating fraud with programs the president "simply doesn’t like or agree with."
The bullet points below are the sizzle from The Washington Post:
By Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was pressed on the supposed evidence of fraud — and seemingly came prepared.
“As for the actual receipts, we are happy to provide them, and I actually brought some today,” Leavitt said, as she waved around printouts.
She proceeded to mention four things:
A $36,000 contract for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
A $3.4 million contract for “inclusive innovation” at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
$57,000 for climate change programs in Sri Lanka.
A limestone mine in Pennsylvania where federal employee retirements are processed on paper.
Truly, in a huge government, where’s the steak? I’d say this is barely even a sizzle.
Hiring an honest hacker to catch hackers makes sense, so why not have a fraudster expose fraud? To answer this question we have to consider the difference between a hacker and a fraudster and look at their motivations. Some hackers hack for fun and to feel superior, not for profit or nefarious reasons. Fraudsters generally commit fraud for profit or, like both Trump and George Santos did about their accomplishments, for personal gain. Trump managed the fraud, possibly of all time, that propelled himself to the presidency. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, he convinced voters he was a genius businessman.
The word "irony" has become as ubiqiutous as the word "coup" when writing about the Trump and MAGA march to monarchy.
Leaving aside why I'd rather not call what Trump is doing a coup, prefering the word blitzkreig (I explained this here), let me call out the fraudsters who have declared themselves, not in so many words, to be like big game hunters gunning down stampeding elephants who are about to crush innocent villagers.
They want to convince us that they are gunning down rampaging fraudsters before they trample over innocent taxpayers.
In the legal sense, Trump is a convicted fraudster. Musk is a fraudster too. This is still on the SEC website. I'm going to post it on the bottom of the page so if it is taken down you can refer to it.
Both Trump and Musk are fraudsters in much more important ways than this. They both have, and continue to, perpetrate a fraud as deadly to democracy as lethal as Zyklon B on freedom loving American people.
They believe, and want you to believe, that they are the smartest people in the world who, uniquely, are the only people who have the answers which will solve all of the country’s, and all of the world's, problems.
Trump, the fraudster who lies about crowd sizes, has repeatedly bragged about his "very, very large brain (here for example). Musk is secure enough so he doesn’t feel the need to brag about his intelligence. On an IQ test Musk might score in the very superior range, in my opinion Trump would, at best, score above average, though I have some doubt about this. (Here’s what IQ tests measure.)
Hitler has been considered by experts to have been very smart, but not a genius. (Reference). Putin is considered to have an IQ of 145. This puts him in the very superior range, smarter than 2% of all people. (Reference)
IQ’s aside, both Trump and Musk are frauds in other ways. They are spewing out lies like unrelenting projectile vomit to convince the public that there is rampant fraud in the federal government that justifies eliminating entire departments and agencies. Musk just said that this is akin to making sure you pull out the roots of a weed to make sure it doesn’t grow back. He wants everyone to believe that because there may be some fraud (he won’t call it waste) in a department or agency the entire department or agency must be eliminated.
What Trump and Musk are really trying to do is an extension of the war on Woke and DEI. They want to get rid of any government entity which works to foster compassion and empathy. They know that the employees in certain agencies are either Democrats or anti-MAGA Republicans. Once they are done with this, they will purge other departments and agencies of anyone who isn’t a MAGA loyalist. They will make sure agencies like the SEC and IRS bend to their will. Worse, they intend to turn the Department of Justice and the FBI into their own Gestapo.
Virtually everything Trump and Musk are working together as president and his smarter co-president are trying to do is to turn America into a dictatorship ruled by toadies, psychopaths, and oligarchs.
When it comes to the claimed fraud, there is barely sizzle. When it comes to the effort to destroy democracy, there are flames coming out of the skillet.
Addendum:
From the SEC: Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges; Tesla Charged With and Resolves Securities Law Charge
Settlement Requires Musk to Step Down as Tesla’s Chairman; Tesla to Appoint Additional Independent Directors; Tesla and Musk Agree to Pay $40 Million in Penalties
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2018-226
Washington D.C., Sept. 29, 2018 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that Elon Musk, CEO and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based Tesla Inc., has agreed to settle the securities fraud charge brought by the SEC against him last week. The SEC also today charged Tesla with failing to have required disclosure controls and procedures relating to Musk’s tweets, a charge that Tesla has agreed to settle. The settlements, which are subject to court approval, will result in comprehensive corporate governance and other reforms at Tesla—including Musk’s removal as Chairman of the Tesla board—and the payment by Musk and Tesla of financial penalties.
According to the SEC’s complaint against him, Musk tweeted on August 7, 2018 that he could take Tesla private at $420 per share — a substantial premium to its trading price at the time — that funding for the transaction had been secured, and that the only remaining uncertainty was a shareholder vote. The SEC’s complaint alleged that, in truth, Musk knew that the potential transaction was uncertain and subject to numerous contingencies. Musk had not discussed specific deal terms, including price, with any potential financing partners, and his statements about the possible transaction lacked an adequate basis in fact. According to the SEC’s complaint, Musk’s misleading tweets caused Tesla’s stock price to jump by over six percent on August 7, and led to significant market disruption.
According to the SEC’s complaint against Tesla, despite notifying the market in 2013 that it intended to use Musk’s Twitter account as a means of announcing material information about Tesla and encouraging investors to review Musk’s tweets, Tesla had no disclosure controls or procedures in place to determine whether Musk’s tweets contained information required to be disclosed in Tesla’s SEC filings. Nor did it have sufficient processes in place to that Musk’s tweets were accurate or complete.
Musk and Tesla have agreed to settle the charges against them without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations. Among other relief, the settlements require that:
Musk will step down as Tesla’s Chairman and be replaced by an independent Chairman. Musk will be ineligible to be re-elected Chairman for three years;
Tesla will appoint a total of two new independent directors to its board;
Tesla will establish a new committee of independent directors and put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk’s communications;
Musk and Tesla will each pay a separate $20 million penalty. The $40 million in penalties will be distributed to harmed investors under a court-approved process.
“The total package of remedies and relief announced today are specifically designed to address the misconduct at issue by strengthening Tesla’s corporate governance and oversight in order to protect investors,” said Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division.
“As a result of the settlement, Elon Musk will no longer be Chairman of Tesla, Tesla’s board will adopt important reforms —including an obligation to oversee Musk’s communications with investors—and both will pay financial penalties,” added Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. “The resolution is intended to prevent further market disruption and harm to Tesla’s shareholders.”
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Walker Newell, Brent Smyth, and Barrett Atwood and supervised by Steven Buchholz, Erin Schneider, and Jina Choi in the San Francisco Regional Office and Cheryl Crumpton in the SEC’s Home Office.
