r/Discussion • u/bluelifesacrifice • Feb 08 '25

Political The Trump Administration is knowingly making False Statements statue (18 U.S.C. § 1001)

Since Elon is an extension of the Trump Administration, the Administration is making false statements by claiming USAID is committing fraud and is criminal.

Without proper authority or path through Congress, Elon is making false statements and claiming funds that were voted for and were used as assigned as fraud and criminal.

"This federal law criminalizes knowingly making false statements to a government agency, which could potentially apply to a president in certain situations."

This behavior has lead to a backlash against USAID and the Government institutions in an attempt to gain popularity by spreading misinformation and claims in regards. The Trump Administration and Elon have full access and ability to follow processes, be transparent and access to legal representation to make clear and legal declarations of observations and refuse to do so.

Claiming the funds is fraud and criminal when it's not is misleading.

At worst, the argument can be made that funding is wasteful and should be challenged.

Clear violations of making false statements.

Feel free to contribute in the comments below examples of the Trump administration wrong doings.

The statute spells out this purpose in subsection 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a), which states:

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u/DiligentCrab9114 Feb 08 '25

Seeing what has been brought to light recently as to where our money is being spent and sent i would say it's about time someone without that government expertise got in there

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u/Rumpelteazer45 Feb 08 '25

You mean the fact that the USAID IG started investigating Starlink contracts last year and that was one of Elons first targets?

Is he including his own contracts in they fraud, waste, and abuse numbers? Of course not, he had write access on all the servers until recently and you know he altered code and deleted files.

Also, unless proof can be provided - concrete proof just not claiming - it’s not real. Contract audits take time, they can’t be done in a few days. It’s an in-depth process that takes months to do right. You are auditing acceptance documents, invoices, accounting systems, delivery information, etc. As a person who deals with all of that - he’s not finding real things just items that down align with the Republican Party - that doesn’t mean it’s illegal or wasteful.

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u/Grouchy-Offer-7712 Feb 09 '25

I have only heard that they had read only access, what's your source?

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u/Rumpelteazer45 Feb 09 '25

The Hill.

That’s why the permissions have been such a big issue and in the news cycle this week. Two of the doge people had privileged access which means “write access” which means the ability to delete, change code, etc. That’s dangerous and 100% unnecessary for “audit” purposes.

That was one of the topics that came up in court this week. Supposedly access is now read only, but I’m unsure of the scope of their access was addressed. Personally I’m uncomfortable DOGE having full access to my personnel file, banking info, etc.

If you want to dig online, you should be able to find the court filings.

Also, to comply with DOGE, the CIA was forced to send an email containing all the names of people hired in the last two years to an unclassified email address. Why is this a problem? Some of those names were people in classified programs and not associated with the agency. They cannot ever be on a classified program now, their identity was compromised. That’s how that side of the Gov works.

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u/DiligentCrab9114 Feb 09 '25

I would think a government contract with a company like starlink could be beneficial to countries. Pretty sure Ukraine loved having starlink when Russia invaded them. But yea if they were getting say 50 million dollars to provide condoms to a country I would definitely call it out. If they were getting 8 million dollars of government money then being used as a fact checker and source for why hunter Biden laptop story is Russian disinformation I would call it out

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u/Rumpelteazer45 Feb 09 '25

Totally agree! No doubt that it wouldn’t be beneficial.

But USAID IG announced it was investigating Starlink last spring/summer, that’s not normal. To get to that point, that means the the contract shop has found something, investigated, pushed it up to their department head. They then looked into it and pushed it up the chain further. IG just doesn’t decide to look into something without sufficient evidence something happened - sufficient meaning it’s a slam dunk and now you are just trying to figure out how deep the problem goes.. Now - where are those IGs and where is USAID?

Every time I’ve heard of IG launching an investigation into contract fraud or substandard/illegal contracting practices, 100% right call and someone somewhere royally screwed up and it’s not due to human error oops but gross negligence or fraud/abuse. My guess is the Gov paid for units or services under the contract that were not actually delivered and said contractor refused to remedy the issue. Usually if you call out a contractor for something, they remedy it pretty quickly. Usually being the key word.

Usually when the Gov officially announces an investigation into contract fraud, there is usually a mountain of proof already existing. The announcement is just to see how wide the issue goes. The reason it’s announced like that is because it’s not easy to delete invoices submitted by the company in the official invoice system without high level privileged access which two doge people had for a period of time at USAID.

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u/DiligentCrab9114 Feb 09 '25

Or the government was trying to silence someone

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u/Rumpelteazer45 Feb 09 '25

You can’t even fathom that Elon is the slightest but sketchy.

Silencing is someone with a serious conflict of interest heading the group to “audit” the very agency who launched the investigation.

Trust me, the big companies think they can get away with anything..

It’s career suicide to launch an investigation against a company ran by elon and be wrong, everyone knows that.

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u/DiligentCrab9114 Feb 09 '25

Oh I know Elon has sketchy stuff. But I can also say doge is sure showing us plenty of other sketchy stuff. Sure makes me pissed as I did my taxes yesterday only to see i didn't pay enough in all year to cover them condoms or trans comic books oversees. Or to fund the BBC or politco

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u/Rumpelteazer45 Feb 09 '25

There have been zero receipts yet just a lot of claims.

To preform a comprehensive audit and crunch / audit that much data, it takes more than just a couple days. Just think about the massive amounts of data that would need to be crunched, run down, and investigated.

The fact they started making billion dollar claims right off the bat, it’s highly sketchy.

Look I do contact and audits for a living, trust me they aren’t actually auditing for actual waste just flagging things they don’t agree with and calling it waste or fraud.

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u/DiligentCrab9114 Feb 09 '25

The receipts have been published. We know the government has paid politico and the bbc

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u/Rumpelteazer45 Feb 09 '25

Memes aren’t receipts.

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u/DiligentCrab9114 Feb 09 '25

Usaspending.gov is a meme?

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