DOJ Inspector General Finds ‘No Evidence’ of Wrongdoing by Trump in FBI HQ Decision

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) inspector general concluded in a Tuesday report that Former President Donald Trump did not inappropriately exert pressure on where to construct the FBI headquarters to protect his hotel from competition.

The investigation started in June 2019 following certain lawmakers and the media voicing worries regarding Trump’s possible influence on the FBI’s sudden choice to abandon its plan to construct a $3 billion suburban campus in Maryland or Virginia for its 10,000 workers in 2017, according to the report. The closeness to his former hotel in Washington, D.C. led some lawmakers to question whether he aimed to obstruct the land’s use for a potential rival hotel project, but the report found no evidence of that.

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IG Reports ‘Historic’ COVID Unemployment Funds Lost, Congress Investigates

Reports indicate as much as $400 billion in COVID-19 unemployment relief were likely lost to waste and fraudsters. Lawmakers want answers.

Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor demanding documents and information related to the unemployment fraud.

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Transportation Department Awards Noncompetitive Contracts ‘Counter to Federal Procurement Rules,’ Inspector General Says

Just the News’ Golden Horseshoe is awarded this week to the Department of Transportation for  awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in IT contracts that lacked adequate documentation or proper justification and were extended without oversight, according to a new DOT Inspector General audit.

“Counter to Federal procurement requirements, DOT’s contracting officers (CO) awarded multiple noncompetitive actions to ITSS [IT shared services] contract vehicles without proper justifications, beyond contract term limits, and despite prolonged contractor performance issues,” the audit summary read.

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IRS Handed Out Over $64 Million in Stimulus Checks to Dead People

An inspector general’s report reveals that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) handed out as much as $64 million in stimulus funding to dead people after Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law.

Just The News reports that the massive oversight was due to a computer error that the IRS was aware of but did not fix at the time. Ultimately, nearly 45,000 total payments were sent to Americans with deceased dependents who died before January 1st, 2021.

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Inspector General Opens Investigation into Allegations That U.S. Capitol Police Have Been Illegally Spying on GOP Lawmakers

The inspector general for the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) has opened a formal investigation into allegations that the law enforcement agency has been improperly spying on Republican members of Congress, their staff, and visitors to their offices, the Federalist reported on Tuesday.

Concerns that the USCP have overstepped their bounds have been simmering for months, with some Republican lawmakers alleging that the Capitol Police have been transformed into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “personal Praetorian Guard.”

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Watchdog Demands Inspector General Investigation into Tracy Stone-Manning’s Allegedly False Statements About Eco-Terrorism Case

A government watchdog group demanded that the Department of the Interior Inspector General launch an investigation into whether President Joe Biden’s Senate-confirmed Bureau of Land Management director nominee violated the False Statement Act with statements she made to Congress about her involvement in a 1989 eco-terrorism case during her confirmation process.

Tracy Stone-Manning was confirmed to lead the agency along a party-line vote on Sept. 30 amid strong opposition from Republicans who accused her of lying to the Senate Energy Committee about her involvement in an eco-terrorism case. Stone-Manning testified in federal court in 1993 that she sent an anonymous, threatening letter to the Forest Service in 1989 on behalf of her former roommate and friend which warned that a local forest in Idaho had been sabotaged with tree spikes to make the trees unsafe to log.

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