A Republican-led House panel called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to release information on COVID-19 relief funds that were lost to fraud, NBC News reported.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic asked Garland in a letter for "all documents and communications regarding metrics or estimates" of COVID-19 relief funds that were lost "due to fraud by international or overseas actors and criminal organizations."
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, the panel chairman, wrote in the letter that the committee seeks to "better understand the full scope of this problem and what actions the Department has taken to investigate international COVID-19 relief program fraud and hold these foreign actors accountable."
A recent estimate from the Labor Department found that nearly 40% of pandemic unemployment payments from March 2020 to September 2021 were fraudulent or unsupported, with an estimated $47.3 billion in lost or questionable payments out of a total of $131.6 billion.
The report cited a "perfect storm" caused by poor verification and design flaws that allowed for the widespread use of fake identities to obtain relief funds.
The Small Business Administration's inspector general this year reported that up to $200 billion had been stolen from that agency's programs, a figure that does not include unemployment relief.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.