Comer winds down role atop panel that exposed fraud, Biden’s autopen and Epstein’s powerful friends

Who knew the U.S. government loses up to $521 billion every year to fraud?

Although most taxpayers believe Washington wastes money, a staggering $521 billion annual fraud price tag may never have been uncovered but for an order by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, to investigate fraud.

Mr. Comer, who will step down as chairman at the end of this Congress, requested that the Government Accountability Office produce the bombshell fraud report, among many other committee investigations that shone a light on some of the biggest scandals in the federal government.

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House Republicans impose a three-term limit for lawmakers who lead committees, which means Mr. Comer will step aside in January.

“It’s been an honor to serve American taxpayers as chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Republicans have restored the Committee’s mission to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and to protect Americans’ hard-earned money,” Mr. Comer told The Washington Times.

Mr. Comer leaves behind a stack of shocking government exposes and at least one high-profile resignation: D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith, who stepped down in December amid a committee investigation into allegations that she allowed widespread data manipulation that hid the District’s crime problem.

Also at the top of the list: The committee’s eye-popping report that determined top aides to President Biden hid his cognitive decline and acted to maintain “an illusion of presidential control” that involved providing unprecedented clemency to thousands of felons using an autopen.

The committee under Mr. Comer’s leadership may be best known for leading the congressional investigation into the Epstein files. It released millions of pages of documents it subpoenaed from the federal government’s probe of late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

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The email exchanges, photos and records exposed Epstein’s connections to powerful figures in the U.S. and abroad.

Mr. Comer summoned many of them for closed-door depositions, forcing them to go on the record about their friendship with the disgraced financier.

Mr. Comer brought in dozens of high-profile figures — including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former President Bill Clinton, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — for closed-door depositions. The committee released transcripts or videos of the interviews.

All witnesses claimed to know nothing about Epstein’s victimization of underage girls, and none has been accused of wrongdoing. The House voted in September to hold billionaire investor and former Epstein friend Leon Black in contempt of Congress for defying two of Mr. Comer’s subpoenas.

Democrats on the panel clashed fiercely with Mr. Comer along the way.

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Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, called the autopen probe “a sham investigation,” and Democrats produced a separate report concluding Mr. Biden authorized every action signed by the mechanical pen.

Democrats said Mr. Comer dodged investigating the Trump administration’s failure to provide all the Epstein files and accused Mr. Comer of shielding administration officials and the president from their own culpability in an alleged cover-up of Epstein’s powerful friends.

The committee became famous for fiery and combative public hearings that produced viral clashes between the 26 Republican and 21 Democratic members.

At one hearing last year, a heated exchange between Rep. Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Texas Democrat, devolved into a yelling match after Ms. Crockett said “child, listen” in her remarks, which Ms. Mace took as a personal insult.

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A furious Ms. Mace challenged Ms. Crockett to “take it outside,” while Mr. Comer pounded the gavel to restore order.

Despite partisan brawls and viral moments, the committee passed 11 bipartisan bills after its investigation into state-level welfare fraud in Minnesota, California and Ohio.

For example, a bill authored by Mr. Comer to pause federal payments for programs deemed at high risk of fraud passed in June with the support of all House Republicans and six Democrats.

The panel also tackled affordability, advancing a bipartisan bill to rein in pharmacy benefit managers, which healthcare analysts say will lower prescription drug costs and increase pricing transparency.

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The panel hosted a forum to spotlight an under-the-radar issue raising grocery costs: lawsuits and increased government regulations that threaten family farms and larger food producers.

Mr. Comer said some of the panel’s most important work under his leadership exposed taxpayer fraud and produced legislation to crack down on it.

In April, the GAO released a report, requested by Mr. Comer, that found shocking holes in the government’s ability to prevent costly program rip-offs. The report estimated that from 2018 until 2022, the federal government may have lost $233 billion to $521 billion annually to fraud.

It called on the government to improve fraud detection and identify programs at high risk of fraud, which Mr. Comer addressed in the bipartisan legislation the House passed in June.

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In March, Mr. Comer summoned Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, both Democrats, to explain why they ignored warnings and whistleblowers, and allowed on their watch a loss of $300 million in federal child nutrition funds and a staggering $9 billion in Medicaid funding lost or put at risk because of fraudulent programs.

“In case after case, state agencies identified red flags and received warnings from auditors and employees, but continued to send money out the door,” Mr. Comer said. “Not because they lacked authority to intervene, but because they feared lawsuits, bad press and political backlash.”

Democrats accused Mr. Comer of centering fraud investigations on blue states and said they hauled in Democratic officials to distract from President Trump’s pardoning of dozens of criminals convicted of fraud.

“Republicans have cherry-picked a blue state and an immigrant population vulnerable to demonize. To be clear, Minnesota is not the only state with a fraud problem,” said Rep. Summer Lee, Pennsylvania Democrat.

As Mr. Comer wraps up his chairmanship of the committee, Democrats are eyeing the gavel amid predictions from political analysts that they will win the House majority in November.

Mr. Garcia did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Times seeking a comment about his time working with Mr. Comer on the committee.

Mr. Garcia told MS Now he is gearing up to shift the panel’s focus toward investigating Mr. Trump, his family and his administration — specifically the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation operations.

“We’ve got a team on Epstein, we have a team on [Trump] family corruption, we have a team on DHS and ICE,” Mr. Garcia said. “Those teams are actively working on preparation, letters, research.”

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Susan Ferrechio

sferrechio@washingtontimes.com

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