Have Trump, Musk and DOGE really unearthed ‘fraud’ in government?

Elon Musk and President Donald Trump say they have uncovered huge “fraud” in the US federal government.

During Oval Office remarks on February 11, Trump said their efforts to cut spending had turned up “billions and billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse”.

Trump added: “We found fraud and abuse, I would say those two words as opposed to the third word that I usually use, but in this case, fraud and abuse.”

Trump and Musk used the word “fraud” or “fraudster” combined about a dozen times during their Oval Office question-and-answer session.

So far, neither Musk nor the Trump White House has shown evidence of this alleged criminal activity that they have found.

On February 12, during a White House news conference, a reporter asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for evidence of fraud.

“I love to bring the receipts,” Leavitt said. She cited three contracts for $36,000 for diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] programmes at US Citizenship and Immigration Services, $3.4m for the Council for Inclusive Innovation at the US Patent and Trademark Office, and $57,000 related to climate change in Sri Lanka.

“I would argue that all of these things are fraudulent,” Leavitt said. “They are wasteful and they are an abuse of the American taxpayer’s dollar.”

When PolitiFact asked about these claims, the White House press office pointed to an April 2024 Government Accountability Office report that found the “federal government loses an estimated $233 billion to $521 billion” every year to fraud.

The White House also sent a list of dozens of Department of Government Efficiency “wins”, including cancelled media outlet subscriptions and contracts for DEI initiatives, consulting and administrative expenses.

“Nothing they have identified is, to my knowledge, evidence of ‘fraud’ or ‘corruption’. Fraud and corruption are crimes,” said Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at George Washington University. “This administration simply has different spending priorities than the last administration. But to label all of it as fraud or corruption is extremely misleading.”

Trump has torn down governmental fraud-finding tools. He fired more than a dozen inspectors general whose job was to ferret out fraud and inefficiencies. He paused the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits businesses from taking bribes from foreign officials.

Government reports show that fraudulent spending is a measurable problem for the federal government. But the evidence that DOGE has uncovered new examples has yet to be proved.

Here’s an overview of how the government deals with waste, fraud and abuse.

Trump added: “We found fraud and abuse, I would say those two words as opposed to the third word that I usually use, but in this case, fraud and abuse.”

Trump and Musk used the word “fraud” or “fraudster” combined about a dozen times during their Oval Office question-and-answer session.

So far, neither Musk nor the Trump White House has shown evidence of this alleged criminal activity that they have found.

On February 12, during a White House news conference, a reporter asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for evidence of fraud.

“I love to bring the receipts,” Leavitt said. She cited three contracts for $36,000 for diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] programmes at US Citizenship and Immigration Services, $3.4m for the Council for Inclusive Innovation at the US Patent and Trademark Office, and $57,000 related to climate change in Sri Lanka.