SOCIAL SECURITY WATCHDOG PROBE SET

Anti-fraud program imposed large fines on more than 100 people

The acting Social Security commissioner will launch a “full investigation” on Monday of Inspector General Gail Ennis’s oversight of an anti-fraud program that imposed extensive penalties on disabled and elderly people, a senior agency official said Saturday.

The action follows a Washington Post report that revealed how attorneys in charge of a little-known program run by Social Security’s watchdog division issued unprecedented fines starting during the Trump administration.

More than 100 people who received disability benefits to which they were not entitled were hit with penalties as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those fines were imposed on poor, disabled and elderly people, many of whom had no hope of ever being able to pay.

The acting commissioner “has very serious concerns about the issues raised by The Washington Post about the inspector general’s oversight of this program,” Scott Frey, chief of staff to Kilolo Kijakazi, said in an interview. Kijakazi has scheduled a meeting with her senior staff on Monday “to discuss how to proceed,” Frey said.

Top House Democrats with oversight of the Social Security Administration and its watchdog also called on President Joe Biden to investigate, calling the penalties an “apparent abuse of authority.”

In a statement Friday, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, Dmass.; Social Security subcommittee Chairman John Larson, D-conn.; and worker and family support subcommittee Chairman Danny Davis, D-ill., called on the president and Kijakazi to “swiftly investigate this apparent abuse of authority, to put in place safeguards to prevent future abuse, and to provide relief to any individuals wrongfully victimized.”

A spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee, which also has jurisdiction over Social Security, said the committee is “evaluating a number of steps” in response to the article.

The penalties issued by the Civil Monetary Penalty Program started in 2018 as the program was floundering. Attorneys went against federal regulations and deviated from how the program had recovered money from those accused of fraud for more than two decades.

The inspector general’s office failed to take into account recipients’ financial state, their age, their intentions and level of remorse, among other factors, according to interviews, documents and sworn testimony before an administrative law judge. Staff attorneys were directed to charge those affected as much as twice the money they had received in error, on top of the fines.