Untitled Document

[00:00:00] Let me call to order this third hearing [00:00:01] of the Senate Committee on Homeland [00:00:03] Security and Governmental Governmental [00:00:04] Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster [00:00:07] Management, which I am delighted to work [00:00:08] on with my colleague, Ranking Member [00:00:10] Kim. I want to thank you, say a thank [00:00:12] you to all of our witnesses for being [00:00:14] here, as well as everybody who is in the [00:00:15] room and joining us online. The title of [00:00:18] today's hearing is examining fraud and [00:00:21] foreign influence in state and federal [00:00:23] programs. And today's hearing is going [00:00:25] to examine two pillars that are truly [00:00:27] fundamental to our republic and to the [00:00:30] confidence of the American people in our [00:00:32] republic. And that is the integrity of [00:00:34] our public funds and the integrity of [00:00:37] our political system. Let me just start [00:00:39] with the second one. As early as the [00:00:40] constitutional convention, Alexander [00:00:42] Hamilton warned that foreign powers [00:00:45] would try to exploit America's freedoms [00:00:47] to seow divisions inside our country. [00:00:49] Threats from foreign influence, he said, [00:00:51] should never be dismissed as idol or as [00:00:54] hypothetical. And today, we are [00:00:55] confronting a raft of allegations and [00:00:58] reports that foreign influence and [00:01:00] foreign money is making its way into the [00:01:03] American political system and is [00:01:04] financing activities that is not only [00:01:06] destructive, detrimental, and divisive, [00:01:09] but also potentially illegal. At the [00:01:11] same time, more and more Americans are [00:01:14] rightly concerned about the use of their [00:01:16] tax dollars and where their tax money is [00:01:19] being spent around the country. You [00:01:21] know, I've often thought watching and [00:01:23] reading reports here in recent months [00:01:25] that if you are a hardworking American [00:01:26] taxpayer, if you're somebody who wakes [00:01:28] up every morning, goes to your job, [00:01:30] plays by the rules, plays the tax, pays [00:01:32] your taxes, you must feel like such an [00:01:36] idiot. I mean, you must feel so taken [00:01:38] advantage of because here we have [00:01:40] reports, credible reports, and we're [00:01:42] going to hear more about it today with [00:01:43] some substantiation of billions of [00:01:45] dollars of taxpayer money. Your money, [00:01:47] your tax funds being taken and spent on [00:01:51] illicit activities, on foreign overseas [00:01:54] activities, on other illegal and [00:01:56] criminal activities. It's absolutely [00:01:58] outrageous. And it's time that we got [00:02:00] accountability for how Americans [00:02:03] hard-earned tax dollars are being spent [00:02:06] and how the integrity of our political [00:02:08] system is being protected. We're going [00:02:10] to hear testimony that tens of billions [00:02:12] of dollars intended to serve the public [00:02:14] have been lost to fraud. In the state of [00:02:16] Minnesota alone, organized criminal [00:02:19] criminal syndicates stole COVID era [00:02:21] disaster money to the tune of billions [00:02:23] of dollars. And since then, they have [00:02:25] defrauded money from every single [00:02:27] federally funded program in the state of [00:02:29] Minnesota. Let me say that again. Every [00:02:32] single federally funded program in the [00:02:34] state of Minnesota. Programs intended [00:02:37] for children, for the elderly, for the [00:02:40] poor, for the sick, for the most [00:02:42] vulnerable Americans. We're going to [00:02:43] hear testimony that $9 billion has been [00:02:45] defrauded in Minnesota from Medicaid [00:02:48] alone. $9 billion [00:02:51] vanishing into luxury cars, overseas [00:02:54] vacations, billions going to fund [00:02:57] foreign adversaries, billions shipped [00:02:58] out of the country. In the last two [00:03:00] years alone, get this now, nearly $700 [00:03:03] million in cold, hard cash was stuffed [00:03:06] into suitcases and flown out of [00:03:08] Minneapolis. [00:03:10] $700 million. That is 14,000 lbs of $100 [00:03:14] bills in suitcases flown out of our [00:03:18] country overseas. We're going to hear [00:03:20] testimony that American taxpayers [00:03:22] nationwide are losing north of a [00:03:23] trillion dollar a year in government [00:03:26] programs. That's the Pentagon's entire [00:03:28] budget. A trillion dollar a year. This [00:03:31] isn't isolated crooks gaming the system. [00:03:33] I wish it were. It's transnational [00:03:35] criminal syndicates siphoning money out [00:03:38] of America. 70% of that loot flows [00:03:41] overseas funding cartels, terrorists, [00:03:44] adversaries like North Korea, China, [00:03:47] Iran, Russia. Money meant for American [00:03:51] grandparents, working families, the [00:03:53] elderly, the sick is instead funding [00:03:56] organized crime, arming our enemies, and [00:03:58] subsidizing the trafficking of children. [00:04:00] And the threats don't end there. In [00:04:02] recent weeks, we have seen anti-ICE [00:04:04] protests escalate into outright [00:04:06] lawlessness. [00:04:08] What we're going to hear testimony about [00:04:10] today is these were not spontaneous [00:04:12] protests. In many cases, it's [00:04:14] manufactured chaos. And who is behind [00:04:16] it? Dark money networks and foreign [00:04:19] actors, some of whom have ties to the [00:04:22] Chinese Communist Party. We're going to [00:04:23] hear testimony that these activities are [00:04:25] funded and coordinated by a dense [00:04:27] network of nonprofits and foreign linked [00:04:29] actors who use layer upon layer of pass [00:04:32] through entities to hide the money [00:04:34] trail. classic dark money, money [00:04:37] laundering to take foreign money and [00:04:40] foreign influence and to dump it into [00:04:43] our political system. It's sort of like [00:04:44] riot incorporated. Pre-planned tactics [00:04:47] designed not to protest but to [00:04:49] destabilize, to erode faith in our [00:04:51] institutions, and to force political [00:04:53] change through manufactured crisis. [00:04:56] Listen, at the end of the day, this [00:04:57] hearing is about a simple question. Is [00:04:59] our government equipped to safeguard [00:05:01] taxpayer dollars, protect the rule of [00:05:03] law, and defend our institutions from [00:05:05] exploitation? Because right now, it sure [00:05:07] doesn't look like it. And it's time we [00:05:09] got some answers for the American