RealClearInvestigations Articles

The Securities and Exchange Commission paid $10.7 million to store its electronic data at a Maryland facility that was allegedly certified by a company that does not exist. AiNET Corp. and its former CEO Deepak Jain recently agreed to pay $1.8 million to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly defrauding the government. The settlement does not contain an admission of guilt. Key facts: When the SEC began looking for a new data center in 2012, it required applicants to have a Tier III certification. That means the data center is fully operational even when...

The U.S. Army spent $297 million in 2013, or $425 million in today’s money, developing a surveillance blimp as long as a football field that was supposed to hover over Afghanistan for three weeks at a time. It flew once — for 90 minutes over New Jersey — before the Army canceled the program and sold the blimp for just $301,000 to the company that built it.  That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer...

The last remaining 15 terrorist detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison are considered the “worst of the worst,” “high-value detainees,” and “forever prisoners,” but Gitmo parole records reveal that at least three of the violent jihadists have been recommended for release recently despite high recidivism rates. Mjuayn al-din Jamal al-Din Abd al-Sattar is a “committed member of al-Qaeda” who fought with Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. Wikipedia One is Mjuayn al-din Jamal al-Din Abd al-Sattar, a “committed member...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has not been checking the Treasury’s Do Not Pay List of groups that should not receive federal money. In the first six months of fiscal year 2026, the agency gave $2 billion in rental assistance to entities that were not registered, according to a new audit report. This is after not having any access to the list. In 2024, HUD, lacking access to the Treasury’s Do Not Pay List, gave $5.2 billion in rental assistance to entities that did not properly register for it. Key facts: HUD sends roughly $15 billion in subsidies every year to...

Sometimes a boundary is just a line in the road. But sometimes it’s a gate from one world to another.  Driving due south from downtown Los Angeles through what was once the thriving center of Black L.A. now takes travelers through miles of dystopia that look like Mumbai on a bad day: potholed roads, vacant buildings, and mostly Latino young people – and older African Americans – hanging out with seemingly no particular place to go. Then, about 18 miles in, you enter Paramount, a predominantly Latino city of over 50,000 residents which is still part of Los Angeles County...

Every parent wants a daycare that provides the highest level of supervision for their children, but looking after kids who haven’t even been born yet might be taking things a bit too far. One daycare in Oklahoma qualified for a state grant by claiming to enroll children that birth records later showed were still in the womb. Other daycares double-counted their children or claimed to enroll more children than they were licensed to supervise, State Auditor Cindy Byrd announced in an Aug. 24 press conference. Key facts: Oklahoma’s Childcare Desert Grant program uses federal money to...

Congress members are set to make a $560 million donation to the universities they once attended as students, using taxpayer funds.  Twenty-five senators and 37 House members requested earmarks for their alma maters in the 2027 federal budget, Open the Books found in a review of congressional disclosures. They have not yet been signed into law but will likely be included in the budget Congress must send to President Trump by Sept. 30. An additional 15 Congress members requested $81.8 million for universities where they once worked, and three more members requested $4.8 million for...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekAugust 30 to September 5   RCI Podcasts & Videos On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak with sports columnist Matt Calkins, who resigned from the Seattle Times after the newspaper killed his column that argued it is not hateful to oppose biological men playing women’s sports. On The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, Maggie Miller speaks with James Varney about his recent RCI article which looks at the federal government's unsuccessful...

Contractors working for the State of Illinois took a 470,000-hour paid lunch break on taxpayers’ dime. A company hired during the Covid-19 pandemic to fill staffing shortages at hospitals and long-term care facilities spent more than a third of its time on “standdown,” a contract provision that paid them to be on-site and available in case they were needed. The contractor, Favorite Healthcare Staffing, was supposed to notify the state any time its employees were on standdown for more than 24 hours. There was no evidence those notifications occurred, and the state only...

In 1996, a task force of independent healthcare experts recommended that doctors stop giving urine tests to people who did not show symptoms of a urinary tract infection. The test has “no benefit,” since even a positive result for elevated bacteria levels does not mean the patient is unhealthy, research shows. The recommendation, like many others, was essentially ignored. Today the government spends about $1 billion annually for almost 15% of seniors on Medicare to get the test. There are several dozen and possibly hundreds of such “low-value care” treatments...

The Department of Commerce’s National Technical Information Service charged taxpayers and other federal agencies $50 million in 2013 for electronic copies of government-funded research and reports.There is another well-known service that provides electronic copies of research: Google. Almost 75% of the reports taxpayers spent money on were already available for free on public search engines.That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer...

Oklahoma’s largest school district allegedly paid $2.6 million to a company owned by one of its executives — for architectural work that was never performed, according to a state audit released on Aug. 18.Key facts: Chris Hudgins, executive director of bond & energy management at Tulsa Public Schools, directly oversaw the district’s construction projects. He allegedly awarded contracts to the construction firm Allied Engineering Group at inflated costs, the audit found.Allied then hired M&G Consulting Services — a company Hudgins has owned since 1999 — to...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development spent $460 billion funding its 18 largest affordable housing and homelessness programs over a decade, but a new Open the Books review found the spending didn’t help reduce housing prices. Key facts: For each of the 50 states, Open the Books measured the “affordability gap” — how much the price of an average home grew compared to how much income grew. Idaho had the worst gap. Income grew 68% from 2015 to 2024, but the price of a house grew 151%. Florida, Nevada and Tennessee also had some of the worst gaps. Those are all...

Elon Musk may consider hydrogen “mind-bogglingly stupid” as a power source for cars, but the derision of the world’s most successful electric vehicle manufacturer has not stopped Washington from nursing dreams that hydrogen might become a big part of an envisioned clean new energy future.  That dream came into focus three years ago at a time when the “climate crisis” dominated Washington’s thinking. Praising the role hydrogen could play in a brave new energy world that was “sustainable and equitable,” the United States had a plan and the...

Federal money meant to help Ohio manufacturers was spent on ghostwritten articles, golf outings, poker chips, T-shirts and a celebrity who was paid almost $16,000 to attend a virtual event without speaking. The Department of Commerce inspector general questioned $20.9 million in spending, according to an August audit. The program has received almost $52 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the Commerce Department, since 2016. Key facts: The federal money came from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program meant to help manufacturers create jobs and...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekAugust 23 to August 29   RCI Podcasts & Videos On this week’s RCI Podcast, Zane & Varney speak with Atlantic writer Tyler Austin Harper about his widely discussed, gracefully written articles – including a piece addressing Jason Arday's suicide – reporting how identity politics is undermining academic freedom.   Featured Investigation: American Medinas: Turning US Cities Into ‘Beachheads’ for Islam Paul Sperry reports for RealClearInvestigations that Muslim-Americans have won political control of several...

In the last 11 years, the University of Connecticut Health Center has spent more than $690,000 on payments to employees for unused paid time off that either went against state policy or were explicitly not allowed under collective bargaining agreements. The issue has been flagged in six separate state audits, most recently in a July 2026 report. Key facts: UConn Health employees earn compensatory time when they are required to work longer hours or on a state holiday, among other reasons. The compensatory hours can be used as paid time off at a later date. State policy dictates,...

Prostitution is not a legitimate business under most U.S. laws — except the federal tax code. The Internal Revenue Service allows legalized brothels in Nevada to qualify for the same standard deductions as any other small business. The brothels frequently write off business expenses such as testing for sexually-transmitted diseases, the “salaries and wages of prostitutes,” and even breast implants, according to the Congressional Research Service. The deductions caused the federal government to miss out on $17.5 million of revenue in 2013, or $25 million in today’s...

An independent audit of the Memphis, Tennessee school district uncovered $54.2 million in spending that showed evidence of potential fraud, and issued an astonishing 133 recommendations for the district to improve its fiscal responsibility. Key facts: A $48.4 million contract with the custodial company ServiceMaster Clean accounted for most of the potential fraud. According to the audit, a school board committee recommended in 2022 that the Memphis-Shelby County Schools hire four different custodial companies to service its 160 schools. Then-Chief of Business Operations Genard Phillips...