Category Archives: Whistleblower

Bowe Bergdahl, Time Served

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Remember, Obama approved the ransom payment to Haqqani for Bergdahl, or was it? Perhaps it was to finish the prisoner swap details with both networks, the Taliban and Haqqani.

An Army officer is recommending that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a lower-level court martial and be spared the possibility of jail time for leaving his post in Afghanistan, his lawyer said Saturday.
Defense attorney Eugene Fidell said Lt. Col. Mark Visger has decided Bergdahl’s case should go to a military system similar to civilian courts that handle misdemeanor charges. It limits the maximum punishment to reduction of rank, a bad conduct discharge and a short jail term, though that isn’t being sought, Fidell said. Military prosecutors charged Bergdahl in March with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, a charge that could carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

By The Associated Press – Associated Press – Saturday, October 10, 2015

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was handed over to U.S. special forces in May 2014 after nearly five years in captivity in Afghanistan. Here is a look at some of the key events from his capture until Saturday, when an Army officer recommended Bergdahl’s case should go to a military system that’s similar to civilian courts that handle misdemeanors:

June 30, 2009 – Bergdahl, who is serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment, vanishes from a base in Afghanistan’s Paktika province near the border of Pakistan.

July 2, 2009 – Two U.S. officials tell The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Bergdahl had “just walked off” his base with three Afghans after his shift.

July 18, 2009 – Taliban posts video online showing Bergdahl saying he was “scared I won’t be able to go home.” Bergdahl also says he was lagging behind a patrol when he was captured.

July 19, 2009 – Pentagon confirms missing U.S. solider in Afghanistan is Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Ketchum, Idaho.

July 22, 2009 – More than 500 people attend a vigil in Hailey, Idaho, to show support for Bergdahl and his family.

Dec. 25, 2009 – The Taliban releases a video showing Bergdahl apparently healthy and making a lengthy statement criticizing the U.S. military operation.

June 16, 2011 – The Army announces that Bergdahl has been promoted from specialist to sergeant.

June 30, 2011 – Bergdahl’s parents mark the second anniversary of their son’s capture at hometown event.

Aug. 29, 2011 – US officials tell the AP that direct U.S. talks with the Taliban had evolved to a substantive negotiation before they were scuttled by Afghan officials who feared the talks would undercut President Hamid Karzai.

May 9, 2012 – Bergdahl’s parents say they are hopeful that negotiations or a prisoner swap could bring their son home. Bob Bergdahl tells hometown newspaper that he’s concerned the U.S. government hasn’t done enough to secure his son’s release. The AP agreed in 2010 – at the request of the Pentagon and the White House – not to report on the proposed prisoner swap and ongoing negotiations, on the grounds that public discussion would endanger Bergdahl’s life. When Bergdahl’s parents began to discuss the deal publicly, the AP and other news organizations reported the proposed swap – a plan that would allow the transfer of five Taliban prisoners held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Weekend of May 27, 2012 – President Barack Obama calls Bergdahl’s parents to assure them that he and the U.S. Department of Defense were doing everything in their power to free Bergdahl.

June 29, 2012 – Bergdahl’s family and hometown marks the third anniversary of his capture. Parents release a statement saying they hope he’s released this year and can return home.

June 20, 2013 – The Taliban proposes a deal in which they would free Bergdahl in exchange for five of their most senior operatives at Guantanamo Bay.

July 9, 2013 – The Taliban close the office in Qatar that was serving as the site for negotiations with the U.S.

Jan. 15, 2014 – U.S. officials say they received a new video of Bergdahl that they believe was taken in the last month, showing Bergdahl is alive.

Feb. 18, 2014 – Bergdahl’s family says they are cautiously optimistic about reported renewed efforts by the Obama’s administration to win his freedom.

May 31, 2014 – Obama administration officials announce that Bergdahl was handed over to U.S. special forces by the Taliban in exchange for the release of five Guantanamo detainees. Bergdahl’s parents say they’re “joyful and relieved.” But debate quickly erupts over whether Bergdahl is a hero or a deserter.

June 2, 2014 – Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry criticizes the U.S. for swapping Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to secure Bergdahl’s release. American officials tell The Associated Press that the Pentagon concluded in 2012 that Bergdahl walked away from his unit, something members of his unit had said put soldiers in danger.

June 4, 2014 – Bergdahl’s Idaho hometown cancels plans to celebrate his return, citing security concerns.

June 13, 2014 – Bergdahl arrives at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

June 16, 2014 – The Army says it is investigating the facts and circumstances around Bergdahl’s disappearance.

Aug. 6, 2014 – The Army begins questioning Bergdahl, who by now has returned to regular duty, about his disappearance.

Aug. 21, 2014 – The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says the Pentagon broke the law when it swapped Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders because it didn’t notify relevant congressional committees at least 30 days in advance and used money from a wartime account to make the transfer.

Dec. 19, 2014 – The Army says it has finished its investigation.

March 25, 2015 – Bergdahl is charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

March 26, 2015 – Bergdahl’s lawyer releases a note in which Bergdahl says he was repeatedly tortured by the Taliban.

Sept. 17, 2015 – An Article 32 hearing begins to determine whether Bergdahl should face a military trial for leaving his post.

Sept. 18, 2015 – The hearing ends, and the presiding officer will forward his recommendations to the leader of the U.S. Army Forces Command, who will decide whether it should be referred to a court-martial or be resolved in another manner.

Oct. 9, 2015 – Bergdahl’s attorney says an Army officer recommends that Bergdahl face a lesser court-martial, meaning it should go to a military system that’s similar to civilian courts that handle misdemeanor, as well as not spend time in jail.

ISIS, Toyota Trucks and the U.S. State Dept

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File this one under…..’shaking my head’.

 

Where did Islamic State get all those Toyota trucks?

The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was founded in Doha, Qatar in 2012. It is a lobby operation in Washington DC supporting the banner of the Free Syrian Army, presently led by Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition.

Sadly, while the West attempted to support the anti-Assad forces in an admittedly failed program this week with particular emphasis on Russian intervention into Syria with bombing of only an estimated 10% of Islamic State forces, the U.S. has terminated this program. Many of those trained by Special Forces and the CIA fell victim to being kidnapped, killed or defected to Islamic State and those pesky Toyota rides were seized by ISIS fighting factions.

As airspace de-confliction talks continue between Russia and the United States, a decision was made by Secretary Carter to begin to support the Kurds instead as airstrikes by the U.S. has picked up some pace in the last two days.

Heh, perhaps the targets now being watched are convoys with U.S. State Department Toyota trucks in the hands of Islamic State.

 

Mystery of ISIS’ Toyota Army Solved: Evidence Show Transferring Was Through Turkey

The US Treasury has recently opened an inquiry about the so-called “Islamic State’s” (ISIS/ISIL) use of large numbers of brand-new Toyota trucks. The issue has arisen in the wake of Russia’s air operations over Syria and growing global suspicion that the US itself has played a key role in arming, funding, and intentionally perpetuating the terrorist army across Syria and Iraq.

ABC News in their article, “US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks,” reports:

U.S. counter-terror officials have asked Toyota, the world’s second largest auto maker, to help them determine how ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks and SUVs seen prominently in the terror group’s propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, ABC News has learned.

Toyota says it does not know how ISIS obtained the vehicles and is “supporting” the inquiry led by the Terror Financing unit of the Treasury Department — part of a broad U.S. effort to prevent Western-made goods from ending up in the hands of the terror group.

“This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors,” Faily said. “How could these brand new trucks… these four wheel drives, hundreds of them — where are they coming from?”

Not surprisingly, it appears the US Treasury is asking the wrong party. Instead of Toyota, the US Treasury’s inquiry should have started next door at the US State Department.

 

Mystery Solved

Just last year it was reported that the US State Department had been sending in fleets of specifically Toyota-brand trucks into Syria to whom they claimed was the “Free Syrian Army.”

US foundation-funded Public Radio International (PRI) reported in a 2014 article titled, “This one Toyota pickup truck is at the top of the shopping list for the Free Syrian Army — and the Taliban,” that:

Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.

Hiluxes were on the Free Syrian Army’s wish list. Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition, is a fan of the truck.

“Specific equipment like the Toyota Hiluxes are what we refer to as force enablers for the moderate opposition forces on the ground,” he adds. Shahbander says the US-supplied pickups will be delivering troops and supplies into battle. Some of the fleet will even become battlefield weapons..

The British government has also admittedly supplied a number of vehicles to terrorists fighting inside of Syria. The British Independent’s 2013 article titled, “Revealed: What the West has given Syria’s rebels,” reported that:

So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4×4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4×4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers.

It’s fair to say that whatever pipeline the US State Department and the British government used to supply terrorists in Syria with these trucks was likely used to send additional vehicles before and after these reports were made public.

The mystery of how hundreds of identical, brand-new ISIS-owned Toyota trucks have made it into Syria is solved. Not only has the US and British government admitted in the past to supplying them, their military forces and intelligence agencies ply the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and even Iraq where these fleets of trucks must have surely passed on their way to Syria – even if other regional actors supplied them. While previous admissions to supplying the vehicles implicates the West directly, that nothing resembling interdiction operations have been set up along any of these borders implicates the West as complicit with other parties also supplying vehicles to terrorists inside of Syria.

 

What Mystery?

Of course, much of this is not new information. So the question remains – why is the US Treasury just now carrying on with this transparent charade? Perhaps those in Washington believe that if the US government is the one asking this obvious question of how ISIS has managed to field such an impressive mechanized army in the middle of the Syrian desert, no one will suspect they had a role in it.

Of course, the trucks didn’t materialize in Syria. They originated outside of Syria and were brought in, and in great numbers, with the explicit knowledge and/or direct complicity of the US and its regional allies. Asking Toyota where the US State Department’s own trucks came from is another indication of just how lost US foreign policy, legitimacy, and credibility has become.

Russia’s intervention, and what should become a widely supported anti-terror coalition must keep in mind the criminality of the US and its partners when choosing its own partners in efforts to restore security and order across the Middle East and North Africa.

 

 

Delivered Documents Go Deeper on Clintons’

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There is no longer doubt that certain personnel at the State Department were in collusion with the Clintons, but this time on the Foundation side and with regard to Bill giving speeches for big money.

Each time there was a speech request for Bill, the procedure was to pass the full speech application request to the State Department to determine if the sponsors were acceptable and approved. A database is maintained at State for diplomatic purposes on global and domestic corporations such that the speech requests would be only somewhat investigated. This also gives rise to the fact that government and especially corporations use the State Department and likewise in reverse to advance mutual relationships, agendas and of course money is always involved. Thanks to Judicial Watch for their tireless work as noted below.

 

Clinton Cash Connections Exposed – New Docs Raise Questions On Clinton Conflicts of Interest

 

The Clinton email scandal is serious enough. Nonetheless, it is useful to remember what exactly Mrs. Clinton was trying to hide before our litigation forced the disclosure of her separate email system. You can bet that the cover up of the depth of her abuse of office for private gain is one thing about which she does not want you to know the full truth. Judicial Watch is in the lead in uncovering these Clinton cash abuses. This week, we released 789 pages of State Department “ethics” review documents concerning former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, revealing that at least one speech by Bill Clinton appeared to take place without the required State Department ethics approval. The documents also include a copy of Bill Clinton’s draft consultant agreement with Laureate Education, Inc., which was submitted for ethics review by the State Department. But the State Department redacted the information regarding compensation and the specific services Bill Clinton was hired to provide to the controversial “for profit” education company. The documents were released as a result of a federal court order in our history-making Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department on May 28, 2013, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00772)). The documents include heavily redacted emails from 2009 about the review of a speech Bill Clinton was set to give to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). An April 1, 2009, email from then-State Department Senior Ethics Counsel Waldo W. “Chip” Brooks notes that the ethics review approval of the speech “was in the hands of Jim [Thessin] and Cheryl Mills. They were to discuss with Counsel to the former President. I do not know if either ever did.” A follow-up September 1, 2009, email to Brooks from a colleague asks, “[W]as there ever a decision on the Clinton request involving scrap recycling? Below is the last e-mail I have on it – I assume it just died since I don’t’ have an outgoing memo approving the event …” Brooks responds two minutes later:

“I think the decision was a soft call to Clinton’s attorney and the talk did not take place. You might want to send an email to [Clinton Foundation Director of Scheduling and Advance] Terry [Krinvic] and tell her that you have a gap in your records because you were gone and wanted to know if the President ever did talk before ISRI?

In fact, Bill Clinton spoke to the scrap recycling group on April 30, 2009, for a reported fee off $250,000. The documents also include a request from Doug Band of the Clinton Foundation for an ethics review of Mr. Clinton’s proposed consulting arrangement, through WJC LLC, with Laureate Education, Inc. The Obama State Department redacted key terms of the attached May 1, 2010, draft agreement, including Mr. Clinton’s fees and the nature of Mr. Clinton’s services. Laureate Education, Inc. is the world’s largest, for-profit, international higher education chain and reportedly uses many of the same practices that spurred a 2014 regulatory crackdown by the Obama administration on for-profit colleges in the United States. In 2010, according to The Washington Post, the company hired former President Clinton to serve as its honorary chancellor, and since that time the former president has made more than a dozen appearances in countries such as Malaysia, Peru, and Spain on the company’s behalf. Since 2010, the former president reportedly has been paid more than $16 million from the company for his services. The Clinton-Laureate connection is rich. The Daily Caller did some digging into the Clinton tax returns that were highly revealing:

Clinton signed on as the honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities, a subsidiary of Laureate Education, in 2010. Despite the honorary nature of his position, that didn’t stop the company from paying him on average approximately $3 million a year. The investment likely paid off, though, as Clinton has lent Laureate significant legitimacy and has served as an advocate for the company overseas, making appearance in countries like Peru and Malaysia to praise it. In addition to these direct payments, Laureate also donated to the Clinton Foundation and has cooperated with the Clinton Global Initiative.

The latest State Department documents also show some push-back by ethics officials concerning proposed Clinton speeches to Chinese government-linked entities. State Department officials, for example, had several questions about a proposed 2009 speech to a subsidiary of the Shanghai Sports Development Corporation, a Chinese “quasi-government” agency. Rather than answer the questions, the Clinton Foundation representative emailed “we are not going to proceed with this.” State Department ethics official “Chip” Brooks commented on the withdrawal of the Chinese speech in December 2009 to then-Deputy Legal Adviser Jim Thessin, “Cooler heads have prevailed.” The documents show the State Department approved scores of requests by former President Bill Clinton to appear as the featured speaker at events sponsored by some of the world’s leading international investment and banking firms, including J.P. Morgan, Barclays, Merrill Lynch, Sweden’s ABG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Brazil’s Banco Itau, Vista Equity Partners, Goldman Sachs, Vanguard Group (described as “one of the world’s largest investment management companies”), Canada’s Imperial Bank of Commerce, and Saudi Arabia’s SAGIA conglomerate (which claims to be the “gateway to investments in Saudi Arabia”). While the majority of the documents do not contain the fees that Clinton charged for his speaking services, those that are disclosed reveal that the former president routinely received six-figure honorariums for his advice to the international investment counseling firms and banking institutions, including:

  • Barclays Capital Singapore – $325,000 • Needham Partners South Africa – $350,000 • Cumbre de Negocios (sponsored by Nacional Financiera and El Banco Fuerte de Mexico) – $275,000 and $125,000) • NTRPLC (which describes itself as “developing a new investment portfolio of wind projects in Ireland and the UK”) – $125,000

The documents reveal that between 2009 and 2011, former President Clinton spoke to more than two dozen leading international investment firms and banking institutions, many of them on more than one occasion. At least one of the documents shows that Hillary Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills used a non-governmental email account for the Clinton ethics reviews. Mills reportedly negotiated the “ethics agreement” on behalf of the Clintons and the Foundation that required the Clintons to submit to rigorous conflict-of-interest checks. Despite this, and in apparent violation of Obama administration ethics rules, the documents reveal that Bill Clinton’s requests for speaking engagement approval were invariably copied to Mills, who was involved in ethics reviews as chief of staff for Mrs. Clinton at the State Department. The documents also include the demands that Bill Clinton’s speakers bureau, The Harry Walker Agency, laid out for a speech sponsor in Slovenia. Notably, the documents require that press be kept in a “designated, roped off area in the back of the room with a staff escort” and that the “press should not be given access to any area where the President likely may be.” This JW lawsuit broke open the Clinton cash scandal by forcing the disclosure of documents that provided a road map for over 200 conflict-of-interest rulings that led to at least $48 million for the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State. Previously disclosed documents in this lawsuit, for example, raise questions about funds Clinton accepted from entities linked to Saudi Arabia, China and Iran, among others. This and other JW lawsuits on Benghazi were the key pressure that forced the disclosure of the Clinton email system. Judicial Watch’s litigation to obtain these conflict of interest records is ongoing. The State Department has yet to search the email records Mrs. Clinton purportedly turned over to the agency last year, despite Judicial Watch’s first requesting these records in 2011 and filing this lawsuit in 2013. The State Department also has yet to explain why it failed to conduct a proper, timely search in the 20 months between when it received our request on May 2, 2011, and February 1, 2013, when Secretary Clinton left office. Judicial Watch also is pressing the State Department to conduct a reasonable search for records, including any emails on the Hillary Clinton email server. On September 3, Judicial Watch filed a request with the court for discovery from the State Department and/or Mrs. Clinton in order to find these records so they might finally be searched as the law requires. Specifically, Judicial Watch’s attorneys ask the court to take steps to obtain the records directly:

To the extent Secretary Clinton or her agents or vendors continue to have access to this agency system of records, or any records from the system that have migrated or been transferred to any new servers, storage devices, or back-up systems, Judicial Watch respectfully submits that a constructive trust must be imposed on any such records and systems so that the State Department can access and search them for records…

Accordingly, Judicial Watch asks the court to order the State Department:

To identify, either through declarations or discovery, all information in its possession or control about the transfer of any data from the “clintonemail.com” server to Secretary Clinton’s vendor and whether any such data is still available or otherwise recoverable from the vendor’s server, storage devices, or back-up systems. If the State Department asserts that it does not have this information or cannot obtain it, limited third-party discovery of Secretary Clinton and/or her vendor should be authorized to enable the Court to obtain the information, which is necessary to remedy the State Department’s failure to search the server during Secretary Clinton’s tenure in office, its further failure to secure all federal records on the server when Secretary Clinton left office, and Secretary Clinton’s wrongful retention of these records after she left office.

Judicial Watch’s court filing details how it was “wrongful and in violation of federal law and State Department regulations” to allow Hillary Clinton “to retain exclusive access to this agency system of records (Clinton’s separate email server) and the official State Department communications and records it contains after she left office on February 1, 2013.” In short, we’re asking the court to allow us to figure out where the Clinton documents are and to take steps to make sure they are preserved and searched as the law requires. These records show that the “ethics reviews” of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s potential conflicts of interest was a joke. JW supporters should be proud of how their support resulted in a lawsuit that helped force the disclosure of Hillary Clinton’s separate email system. And now we hope that it results in getting all the Clinton emails searched to find out what else Hillary Clinton didn’t want the American people to see about her shady dealings. Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit has become particularly noteworthy because it has been reported that the Clinton Foundation, now known as the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, accepted millions of dollars from at least seven foreign governments while Mrs. Clinton served as secretary of State. The Clinton Foundation has acknowledged that a $500,000 donation it received from the government of Algeria while Mrs. Clinton served as secretary of State violated a 2008 ethics agreement between the foundation and the Obama administration. Some of the foreign governments that have made donations to the Clinton Foundation include Algeria, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, have questionable human rights records. Links to the full production of documents can be found here: May 4, 2015; June 15, 2015; July 27, 2015 and September 4, 2015. Feel free to review the documents and let us know if you find anything important that we might have missed!

Hello FBI, What about this $125 Billion?

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Where is the U.S. Department of Treasury? Where is the White House? (rhetorical)

By the hour scandals come out of the Federal government where the reaction is: ‘it is under investigation’ or we have created a task force to advise on how to correct the issue or it was due to a computer glitch.

Never do we hear that someone is going to prison for malfeasance or theft or obstruction.

So how about putting pressure on the White House to call in the FBI, build the case and then move to a criminal case? Sounds great huh? Maybe even House of Cards will do a whole series on the waste, fraud and corruption, after all it is revenue generating right? Oh…one more thing, whistleblowers have a very short life and career span in Washington DC, but there are laws where Federal employees must comply and report waste, fraud and abuse….well so it goes.

Well back to the $125 billion, while that was only LAST year.

In part: What GAO Found

A number of strategies, including implementing preventive controls and addressing GAO’s prior recommendations, can help agencies reduce improper payments, which have been a persistent, government-wide issue. The improper payment estimate, attributable to 124 programs across 22 agencies in fiscal year 2014, was $124.7 billion, up from $105.8 billion in fiscal year 2013. The almost $19 billion increase was primarily due to the Medicare, Medicaid, and Earned Income Tax Credit programs, which account for over 75 percent of the government-wide improper payment estimate. Federal spending in Medicare and Medicaid is expected to significantly increase, so it is critical that actions are taken to reduce improper payments in these programs. Moreover, for fiscal year 2014, federal entities reported estimated error rates for 10 risk-susceptible programs that exceeded 10 percent. Recent laws and guidance have focused attention on improper payments, but incomplete or understated estimates and noncompliance with criteria listed in federal law hinder the government’s ability to assess the full extent of improper payments and implement strategies to reduce them. For example, for fiscal year 2014, 2 federal agencies did not report improper payment estimates for 4 risk-susceptible programs, and 5 programs with improper payment estimates greater than $1 billion were noncompliant with federal requirements for 3 consecutive years. Identifying root causes of improper payments can help agencies target corrective actions, and GAO has made numerous recommendations that could help reduce improper payments. For example, strengthening verification of Medicare providers and suppliers could help reduce improper payments. GAO has stated that continued agency attention is needed to (1) identify susceptible programs, (2) develop reliable estimation methodologies, (3) report as required, and (4) implement effective corrective actions based on root cause analysis. Absent such continued efforts, the federal government cannot be assured that taxpayer funds are adequately safeguarded. The full report is here.

Government burns $125B in improper payments, GAO says

FederalTimes:

A Government Accountability Office report found that the federal government racked up more than $124 billion in improper payments in 2014, $19 billion above the previous year.

The Oct. 1 report found that the surge in payments came almost exclusively from Medicare, Medicaid, and Earned Income Tax Credit programs, which account for 75 percent of improper payments across the federal government.

“Federal spending in Medicare and Medicaid is expected to significantly increase, so it is critical that actions are taken to reduce improper payments in these programs,” the report said.

Improper payments include things like overpayments, underpayments or payments made for goods and services not received.

GAO estimated that since agencies began reporting improper payments in 2003, $1 trillion in federal funding has been lost to the issue.

The report called for greater compliance from government agencies, citing findings that five federal programs with more than $1 billion in improper payments were noncompliant with federal law for three years.

U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified before the Senate Committee on Finance on Oct. 1 to address the report’s findings as well as GAO’s recommendations.

“Reducing improper payments is critical to safeguarding federal funds and could help achieve cost savings and improve the government’s fiscal position,” Dodaro said in testimony.

The report noted that Medicaid and Medicare accounted for $77.4 billion in improper benefits in 2014. To fix the problem, GAO suggested the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid improve Medicare automated audits, track postpayment recovery audit activities, remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards to help prevent fraud and other reforms.

GAO recommended improving efficiency and oversight for Medicaid, including tracking liability for third-party insurers. CMS concurred with the recommendations and, in some cases, was already working on implementation plans for them.

The other big source of improper payments identified in the report was from the Earned Income Tax Credit, a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income earners, particularly those with children.

The report identified $17.7 billion in improper payments related to EITC, largely to due to the credit being incorrectly claimed on tax returns.

“As we have reported, a root cause of EITC noncompliance is that eligibility is determined by taxpayers themselves or their tax return preparers and that IRS’s ability to verify eligibility before issuing refunds is limited,” the report said.

Dodaro said that while the some fraud could play a role in improper EITC payments, the complexity of tax law has led to mistaken applications, which perpetuate improper payments.

“Complexity is definitely the heart of the problem here with the error rates,” he said. “We’re not suggesting they be made more complex. What we are suggesting is that Congress regulate paid tax preparers.”

Dodaro cited Oregon’s practice of regulating paid tax preparers, which originated in the 1970s, and pointed to a 2008 study that found Oregon tax returns are 72 percent more likely to be accurate than a comparable return from paid preparers in other states.

Read the report here.

 

More TPP, Transpacific Partnership Pact Facts

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During Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State, she was for the TPP and now, well she has flipped on that position.

This is yet another shot across the bow of the White House where she is separating herself from Barack Obama, but is she really?

Hillary Clinton announced Wednesday that she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

“I’m continuing to learn about the details of the new Trans-Pacific Partnership, including looking hard at what’s in there to crack down on currency manipulation, which kills American jobs, and to make sure we’re not putting the interests of drug companies ahead of patients and consumers,” she said in a statement. “But based on what I know so far, I can’t support this agreement.”

At the end of the segment of Senator Rand Paul this week with Bret Baier on Fox, Paul describes some of the classified maneuvers of the TPP.

One particular group, left leaning for sure is WikiLeaks, who has been an interesting champion of trying to get all the details on the Transpacific Partnership Part.

TPP leaked: Wikileaks releases intellectual property chapter of controversial internet and medicine-regulating trade agreement

Bolton of Independent:

Wikileaks has released the Intellectual Property Rights chapter of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which they claim contains rules and regulations that would have “wide-ranging effects on internet services, medicines, publishers, civil liberties and biological patents.”

The idea behind the TPP is free trade – amongst the member states, it aims to lower trade barriers, create a common standard for intellectual property, enforce labour and environmental law standards and promote economic growth.

The agreement has come under severe criticism and scrutiny, however, for the policy of total secrecy during the years-long negotiations.

Others have criticised the more stringent intellectual property laws it would introduce, which could extend copyright terms and mean harsher penalties for file-sharers.

A number of trade unions and economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz, have said the agreement “serves the interest of the wealthiest”, and caters to the needs of corporations rather than the citizens of member nations.

Concerns have also been raised over the effect it could have on the cost of medicines – by extending the intellectual property rights of certain branded drugs, delays in the development of cheaper, ‘generic’ versions of these drugs could ensue, potentially leading to poorer people having to wait much longer than the wealthy to get access to the newest medicines.

The chapter on these intellectual property issues is what has been leaked by Wikileaks, and is one of the more controversial chapters in the whole agreement.

Peter Maybarduk, the program director at Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines, said that if the TPP is ratified, “people in the Pacific-Rim countries would have to live by the rules of this leaked text.”

“The new monopoly rights for big pharmaceutical firms would compromise access to medicines in TPP countries. The TPP would cost lives.”

The document, dated 5 October, was apparently produced on the day it was announced that the 12 member states to the treaty had reached an agreement after five and a half years of negotiations.

The nations of Vietnam, Peru, Mexico, Malaysia, Japan, Canada, Australia, USA, Singapore, New Zealand, Chile and Brunei are all prospective member states to the free-trade agreement, between them representing over 40 per cent of the world economy.

Despite the leak, the final text of the TPP is reportedly being held until after the Canadian general election, on 19 October.

While, as Wikileaks says, there still needs to a be a final “legal scrub” of the document before it is finished, negotiations on the document between signatories have now ended.