Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has certainly been on a tear.
We reported earlier how his team had tracked down an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked crypto wallet and frozen $140 million. Bessent also found the money man for the Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and had other fun prepared for the Ayatollah.
READ MORE: Bessent Drops the Financial Hammer on Iran, With a Personal Message to the Ayatollah
But he wasn't just seizing Iran's money; he was cleaning up a lot of the mess left by the Biden administration.
Bessent explained their effort to make sure that money was going out to the proper people, and how they've, through their new process. That stopped the payouts to dead people of about $100 million. "It's common sense," he told Fox's Maria Bartiromo.
🚨 BREAKING: Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent has just found $100 MILLION IN FRAUDULENT PAYMENTS that would've otherwise gone to deceased people
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 21, 2026
Bessent says there might be $500 BILLION in total fraud 🤯🤯
If the Biden admin were still in power, the $100M would've been PAID AND… pic.twitter.com/7hcLjRpooK
"And as a result, so far we've saved about $100 million in payments that didn't go to deceased people. And that would have gone out. We think that there's up to $350 million that we can stop before the end of this year."
"And that goes along with the vice president's task force on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the government. The GAO estimates that it might be, this number might be up to $500 billion, which is about 1.66 percent of GDP!"
"So that could go a long way towards paying down the debt, providing more services. And this is just the start, Maria."
The Trump administration did an extensive review of 885 million payments, worth a total of nearly $2.7 trillion. Since March 2025, the screening identified more than 4,900 disbursements, worth approximately $99 million, associated with deceased payees, according to the Treasury.
“Treasury has delivered on a key promise of President Trump’s mandate to stop improper payments and fraud before money leaves the Treasury, and strengthen the integrity of the federal payment system,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“Together with Vice President Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, this new safeguard addresses a longstanding vulnerability and helps ensure every dollar the federal government spends reaches its intended recipient,” Bessent added. “Treasury will continue efforts to modernize the federal payment system, strengthen safeguards against fraud and improper payments, and protect taxpayer dollars.”
The Treasury used the federal Do Not Pay program — which confirms a recipient’s identity, eligibility, and bank account information before issuing federal payments or awards — as well as other new verification tools to flag the $99 million that was going to the graveyard.
What's astounding is why this simple process wasn't employed before.
Bessent revealed how the Biden Health and Human Services (HHS) department actually got rid of 50-60 people who were charged with monitoring fraud.
🚨 WTF?! Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent just revealed that the Biden HHS FIRED dozens of staff responsible for blocking fraud
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 21, 2026
They de facto legalized fraud by doing this!
"The Biden administration HHS got rid of about 50 or 60 of the people who were charged with monitoring fraud!"… pic.twitter.com/pxoj5O5KSx
Bessent estimated that wrongful payouts and fraud involved "hundreds of billions of dollars" and what was great was that they were now stopping it.
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