# Comer Opens Hearing Investigating Billions Lost to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Pandemic Programs (House Oversight release, Feb. 1, 2023)

**Source URL:** https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-opens-hearing-investigating-billions-lost-to-waste-fraud-and-abuse-in-pandemic-programs/
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**Release title:** Comer Opens Hearing Investigating Billions Lost to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Pandemic Programs
**Date:** February 1, 2023

Verbatim from Chairman James Comer's opening statement:

"Welcome to the first hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability in the 118th Congress."

"We owe it to the American people to get to the bottom of the greatest theft of American taxpayer dollars in history."

"We must identify where this money went, how much ended up in the hands of fraudsters or ineligible participants."

"with massive government spending, comes opportunity for waste, fraud, and abuse."

Checked and not found on this page: the phrase "biggest fleecing of America in American history" does not appear in this release.