House Democrats are opening up an investigation into the Pentagon spending coronavirus relief aid that was supposed to be used for medical supplies and equipment to aid in the COVID fight, but was reallocated to support military contractors, the Washington Post reports.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee, the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and the Financial Services Committee will form a joint panel to look into whether the Department of Defense “inappropriately used hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars appropriated by Congress,” the committee chairs said in a letter to Secretary of Defense Mike Espy.
Under the CARES Act passed in March, Congress allocated $1 billion to use the Defense Production Act to ensure the manufacture and delivery of needed supplies. Instead, hundreds of millions of dollars was used to prop up corporations with Pentagon contracts, including some foreign vendors.
The Trump Administration defended the use of funds, saying Congress did not specify exactly how the money was to be spent.