By Sara Kropf A year ago, I wrote a post lamenting the fact that prosecutors get every benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether they committed intentional Brady violations. My point was that judges routinely credit weak evidence of a defendant’s state of mind in...
By Andrea L. Moseley As I have explained in previous blogs, there is a complex oversight structure created by the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) to address fraud related to pandemic relief funds. Multiple offices within the executive...
By Sara Kropf As the historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump continues, there has been a lot of chatter about what defenses his lawyers would offer. His first set of lawyers withdrew from the case a few days before the Senate trial began. They withdrew amid...
By: Andrea L. Moseley As you might see from the above, not-so-subtle, "light at the end of the tunnel" graphic metaphor, my answer to the headline question is a buoyant "yes." I continue to track the evolution of the Department of Justice's (DoJ's) pursuit of...
By Sara Kropf If I had a dollar for every time a government employee told me, “this OIG investigation is political!”—well, I’d be retired by now. I get it. The Inspector General for many agencies is appointed by the President. There’s a natural instinct to view that...
By Sara Kropf As Andrea mentioned in her last post, the Small Business Administration’s Office of Inspector General (SBA-OIG) has seen a massive increase in fraud complaints to its hotline. These are related to the CARES Act or Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). When...
By Andrea L. Moseley Small businesses have been struggling for survival throughout the pandemic. As if that was not hard enough, small business executives have had to hang on with both hands to avoid being thrown off the pendulating landscape of pandemic relief loan...
By Sara Kropf Each year, we like to look back at our most popular posts. Even in this unique year, our most popular posts were our most practical ones. There’s no doubt that as the news turned to FBI investigations, search terms about the agency’s interview memos...
By Sara Kropf We just finished watching HBO’s The Undoing. Pandemic or not, it’s great television. I'll try not include any plot spoilers in this post, but if you really don’t want to know anything about the show, then you probably want to stop reading now. The show...
By Sara Kropf The Securities and Exchange Commission just announced settled charges against The Cheesecake Factory for making misleading disclosures about COVID-19’s impact on its financial situation. According to the SEC’s press release, “[t]he action is the SEC's...