United State Vice President J.D. Vance chose Kansas City, Missouri to announce a national crackdown on suspected Covid-era PPP fraud.
Backed by White House Cabinet members and Missouri Republicans Eric Schmitt and Gov. Mike Kehow, Vance said they are sending letterd to suspected fraudsters across the country.
“870,000 people who are no longer able to apply for loans from the federal government, not just because they’ve been found to be fraudsters in the Small Business Administration program, it’s because they’ve been tagged as having a high likelihood of committing fraud for other actions that they’ve engaged in,” Vance said
Vance was asked how businesses could fight allegations of fraud.
“We certainly appreciate that some people, mistakes sometimes happen. So we’ve set up a process to ensure that people can actually challenge whether they’ve been adequately or accurately, I should say, tagged as a fraudster,” he answered. Like I said earlier, I don’t suspect many people, and we know from prior history, that not many people are going to appeal that ruling because most of the people who have defrauded the federal government, they know exactly what they’ve been up to.”
Missouri and Kansas will be the starting point for a new Small Business Administration enforcement, announced by SBA Inspector General Bill Kirk named “Operation No Doze.”
“We will start this national operation here in Kansas and Missouri, collaborating with U.S. Attorneys Price and Kriegshauser and their teams as we work across State Line Road to fight fraud, no matter how big or how small. Working with Administrator Loeffler, we are taking the fraud fight to Main Street. Starting tomorrow, the first set of SBA demand letters are going to suspected fraudsters in Kansas and Missouri,” Kirk said
The White House Cabinet leaders and Vance used this opportunity to criticize the Biden administration and rally votes against Democrats. No Missouri or Midwestern data was given at the 45-minute event. Missourinet will be talking with Missouri Western District U.S. Attorney Matt Price about how this affects Missouri.