Sen. Joni Ernst Finds ‘Huge’ Fraud
in the $60 Billion Federal Employees Spent
with Gov’t Credit Cards: Charges at
Casinos, Bars, Pay-Per-View UFC Fights

I thought the Amish didn't use credit cards.

Iceberg plus tip. Charge all with theft of government funds. The J6 prisoner cells will soon be available. I had a local business friend who charged some $100,000 plus on her company credit card for lavish trips, clothes etc. She was his bookkeeper and it wasn't discovered until he noticed his business was losing money. There is no telling what the federal government is losing to theft by our wonderful "public service" federal employees. Millions if not billions.

Yet Democrats and their partisan friends in the judicial system continue to kneecap President Trumps attempt to restore sanity. It's almost as if, perish the thought, they are trying to bankrupt this country and put us all in bread lines. I think some of today's dem rulers dream of this.

Every year we see a so called report from a senator about abuse of federal $$$....all talk no action....they never do anything to resolve the issue!

They'll skate. Every last one of them.

The surprise out here is underwhelming. We used to laugh at UN members coming to New York and tasting the delights of civilization. Our own people do it as well. Government has nice perks.

Prosecute them and put a lien on their assets.

Joni Ernst didn’t discover this. DOGE did. Cancelling 500,000 cards leaves 4.1 million out there still with no auditing or financial controls. Joni doesn’t mention any accountability. Count me as extremely unimpressed.

Garnishment and prison. Make examples of the guilty.

I had a friend whose son used her credit card at college (with out her permission) to treat his friends to a meal. He felt entitled, and knew there would be no penalty. Same here.

A question to ask… Is why any of the federal employees would have a credit card in the first place! ???

Talk is cheap Senator Ernst, how abut some action?

It's sad to think that anyone so noble and self-sacrificing as to work for our Government would actually steal! I suggest immediate termination, and seizure of any pension funds. If they cannot make financial restitution, put them on work details at prison type wages to work it off. Suggested work activities: scraping road-kill off of Federal highways. Hand feeding bison in Yellowstone. Dragging logs out of swamps on Federal lands; testing risky experimental drugs.

And it's all traceable right back to the person whose name is on the card. Where is Pam Bondi on this clear case of FRAUD? If you can't get the individual fraudsters then at least go after the Managers who signed off on their expense reports! In the company of my employ, it was not uncommon for them to promptly and immediately terminate anyone caught so much as putting a personal meal as a business expense.

It is not clear how the charges are reviewed or if they are. Are the employees required to file expense reports? If so, there will be a trail. If they lie on the report, fire them. If there are not expense reports, why not? Please don’t tell me that government employees charge personal expenses on their government card and the bills are subsequently paid with no oversight. If that is happening, this is massive theft. Somewhere there has to be a person who agreed to this insanity - who is it??

Real simple...pull all the government credit cards....and make every politician apply for a new one....it's a simple solution...I don't own a credit card...I shop with cash or in some cases...my bank card...I know where all my funds are and what I will spend....I know what my monthly nut is and pay my utilities promptly....boring...I know...but when you run your own business...you learn to never look away...and trust no one....it's business school 101....

I traveled extensively for a major oil company, before I retired, and I had to jump through hoops every month getting my expenses approved. It may just have been the person I worked for, as he may have had a higher up to answer to. But all government employees don't travel for their work requirements, so why do so many have credit cards?

Which is worse? The user abusing the card or the supervisor approving the expense reports? Do they still do expense reports? I have to get expense report approval to get a 0.50$ parking meter reimbursement, with an attached receipt.

As any such records might still exist, turn them over to bounty hunters. A percentage of the claw back and/or flat rate bonus pay linked to prison sentences.

If anyone misused a business credit card, they would be immediately dismissed, and reimbursement required in return for no prosecution. Most businesses do not issue a credit card. They make the employee use their personal credit card, then file an expense report with the receipts attached. Even if a business does issue a business credit card, they require an expense report with the receipts attached, so they can pass an IRS audit. Here, government employees are obviously also filing fraudulent expense reports.

And how many have been arrested for their crimes? Crime without punishment WILL be repeated by the laughing perps.

thanks #8. greedhead senators are the biggest most ruthless spenders on planet earth. is this a 'oh look over there -it's rocky the squirrel- and he's playing baccarat w/ my gov't card' moment?

Granted its been a while, but the last time I used a government credit card it was mandatory to use for lodging. Recommended for meals. Everything else was better done on your personal card. Someone at Finance looked over every single bill and anything even sort of questionable was greeted with meetings and interrogations. You had to fill out a travel voucher anyway, so reimbursable expenses were covered there. Only a fool would have taken it to a club or some place like that.

Yes, #12, and shall we ask yet again WHERE are Bondi and Patel on this?

I agree with previous posters that nothing will happen to these crooks... But if I were Emperor of America, I'd not only throw the people who did stuff like this in prison at hard labor.... I'd throw their supervisors and whoever operates their unit's 'accounts payable' function in there too.

Is Senator Ernst telling us that there are more Government credit cards being used than there are government employees? I have not watched cable news for more than five years; I much prefer watching the news on RAV, so I have no idea if this "news" is getting out to the people who still watch the legacy media. And, why isn't the Senator more angry talking about this latest scandal? If Federal employees have spent $60 BiILLION on their credit cards, in what time period are we talking about? I mean, it is no longer a question of which institutions are corrupt; it is a question of which instituions are not corrupt? I think there are too many people living in the world who have no belief in an after-life. You just die. That's all. No wonder so many people no longer feel they have to be accountable for their actions, Is there anyone in public life who ever suffers bad consequences for their crooked actions? If is no wonder little children now are so affected by the culture they live in. Our country is rotting from the inside.

I don't understand how or why the government paid for whatever an employee decided to put on their G-card. The rules must have seriously changed in the federal government since the late 1990s - early 2000s. As a senior executive working for FAA, within the security and technology outfits, my G-card was used for an extreme amount of domestic and international-related business travel; however, it was made very clear that I was personally responsible for paying the card each month, obtaining reimbursement by following strict travel rules and submitting formal trip expense reports, with receipts, reviewed and approved/rejected by the next level up the chain. No benefit of doubt was given. Official travel orders were cut before any travel expenses could be incurred. Employees on official government travel were required to fly on government-contracted air carriers, and stay at hotels offering government negotiated rates, fees, and charges. Personal items were not permitted on G-cards. Food expenses could be reimbursed but strictly based on the destination locality's published per diem rates. Rental car reimbursements were similar but more varied, depending on the employee's pay grade and level within the organization. Employees, regardless of title, GS level, or executive status who didn't follow the rules were terminated and forced to eat the unallowable costs, so the vast majority of employees toed the line. Expense documentation templates carried warnings of civil and/or criminal liability for fraudulent charges. Waivers to the stringent, no frills travel policies were available for unusual circumstances, like hiring sherpas to help tote mission-essential equipment (an example I actually approved for a subordinate required to travel with testing equipment to high altitude approach and en route radar sites in Bhutan), were available on a case-by-case basis but had to be submitted and approved before incurring expenses that were nonstandard but essential to the success of the required trip. I left the federal senior executive service voluntarily, once it became clear that Obama was likely to be elected president. I doubt that FAA was an anomaly with respect to GSA travel rules, so if rule and/or oversight changes were made to allow for profligate G-card spending, with little to no employee accountability, it had to have happened under Obama, Trump 45, or Biden. My private sector employment travel, before and after government service, was orders of magnitude less stringently managed than years of government travel, for what it's worth. Going forward, Trump 47 does not seemed inclined to let the inmates run the asylum, so I expect those extravagant care-free days for federal employees to end unceremoniously.

My experience was similar to #27, but on a much smaller scale. I worked as a mechanical engineer for the US Geological Survey for 33 years. My job was in water instrumentation, maintaining and updating the older designs for water level and flow measurement and water samplers, designing and prototyping new equipment when needed, and designing and building equipment for special applications. About halfway through my career, I was issued a government credit card. It was the biggest change to enable me to speed up my work in the entire time I was there. Before I had the card, if I needed a handful of screws, or a piece of material, I had to go through the whole 'procurement process', and it would be a month -or three- before I received the parts I needed. It was excruciatingly slow. Not the fault of the procurements ladies, it was just the system. With the card, when I needed a handful of screws, a tool, shop supplies or a piece of material, I could check prices at three sources, then just go buy it. I spent that money just like it was coming out of MY pocket, as I was acutely aware that every dollar was from Taxes, extracted under threat of punishment from some working guy somewhere. Every month I would receive the card statement, then match the receipts to the statement, account for every penny, go over it with my supervisor, then turn it in to the accounting ladies. Every now and then someone from 'up the line' would come in and do a 'random sample' audit of everyone's card statements to ensure that everything was on the up-and-up. Oh, and a quick note on there being more cards than employees: At our facility, we had I think three GSA-owned vehicles and a couple of boats powered by outboard motors. Each vehicle and each boat had a 'gas credit card' which was used ONLY for gasoline and oil -and perhaps maintenance- for that vehicle. There was a person who was assigned to keep up with the expenses for the vehicles, and they went through the same 'balance the books' process for the vehicle cards as everyone else who had a Government card. But, that was the culture of the agency where I worked. If you had a culture of crookedness and things were never checked, a LOT of Taxpayer's money could disappear down 'RAT holes! A paper trail exists for every card purchase. I say track down every one of 'em, and if an expense was not legit, then Lower the Boom on 'em! We don't need Crooks working in the Federal government!

Either lack of oversight or lack of caring by those in charge. I had a corporate credit card in the private sector. No way that I could get away with a frivolous charge not related to work. I once accidently used my corporate card instead of my personal card (same issuing company and the cards looked similar at that time) for a purchase and had some explaining to do. It must have been an ongoing issue with others, because our next corporate card had a completely different look to it.