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."
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As he wrote, Musk made a big deal about discovering that a mine is being used to store government paperwork as a example of the yeoman work his DOGE people have been doing –– only for Blake to note "that mine was actually exposed 11 years ago by The Washington Post, in a story called, 'Sinkhole of bureaucracy.'"
As he wrote, "This has been the story of Trump’s broader efforts to overhaul the government: big, hyperbolic claims without much to back them up. Even if you expand the money supposedly being rooted out to include fraud and alleged waste, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, notes that DOGE has publicly identified 'only about $2 billion in annual savings from specific line items' — a tiny drop in the bucket."
"They seem to be having trouble locating the actual fraud. They keep saying they’ve uncovered fraud. But when pressed for evidence, they don’t seem to have much or any," Blake accused before ending with, "And that’s a problem when you’re using that as your justification for dismantling large portions of the government."
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