By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-13 13:57:09 | Updated at 2024-12-23 23:48:20
1 week ago
The leading Republican senator working with the Department of Government Efficiency has received allegations that a federal worker is raking in city pay while living in beachy Florida.
A whistleblower has come forward to Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst alleging that one worker at the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has been living in the Miami-area for years.
Ernst, who has been tasked with helping the Senate work with DOGE leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, has been finding ways to crack down on government waste
This is Ernst's latest crackdown on government waste ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's second term, having already made proposals to bring federal teleworkers back to the office.
According to the whistleblower, this man still gets paid handsomely as though he were still going into HUD's Washington, D.C., headquarters weekly.
The person who came forward said this 'Florida Man' has been allowed to 'retire-in-place,' while earning '100 percent taxpayer-funded union time' (TFUT).
In a letter to Acting HUD Secretary Adrienne Todman exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, Ernst outlined the deceptive misconduct, highlighting receipts showing the man had could have been living there since 2020.
'Florida man moonlighting as a 'real estate professional' while allegedly slacking at his day job is just one of the bureaucrats that I'm highlighting this Christmas season,' Ernst told DailyMail.com in a statement.
Elon Musk, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), departs a meeting with the next Senate Majority Leader John Thune in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, 05 December 2024
Ernst has been tasked with helping with DOGE efforts in the Senate
Ernst's office claims that a HUD employee has been lying about his location to receive full D.C.-based pay while he has been living in Florida
'It sounds like a comedic headline, but taxpayers are the butt of the joke as federal employees continue to get caught doing everything but their work,' she said.
'Americans will be getting the last laugh though. Come next year, I will be giving bureaucrats a choice – do your job or be fired.'
Legal documents with the Florida man's name reveal he lives in Port Saint Lucie, Florida.
The documents include housing discrimination complaints from 2019 and 2020, Limited Liability Company (LLC) disclosures every year since 2017 to now and more.
Legal filings even show that he has been defending himself in court down in Florida in a case that's been ongoing since 2022.
The Florida man even argued his own case earlier this year before District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who took down prosecutor Jack Smith's Donald J. Trump v. United States of America illegal documents case.
The Ernst team even uncovered that not only is the employee not living where he claims, but he seemingly has a part time job too.
'Also notable in proving his Florida residency is his active registration as a 'real estate professional,' the Republican writes in her letter.
'Perhaps he conducts the entirety of his real estate business outside of the hours for which he draws a federal paycheck. Somehow, I doubt it.'
The senator said she met with Vivek to discuss how DOGE can be more effective
Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, headquarters of HUD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C.
The Iowan also busted another HUD employee earlier this year that was allegedly paid while she was in prison for a DUI.
A whistleblower came forward then to reveal that a longtime former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) federal bureaucrat Tracy Vargas may have been collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck for four days she spent behind bars.
In March 2020, the agency enacted 'mandatory telework' to deal with the rising rates of COVID-19 infection nationwide.
Just two months later, Vargas, who worked for HUD for 20 years, was arrested in May 2020 at 3:28 p.m. local time for 'driving under the influence of alcohol.' She spent four days in county jail in Oklahoma and did not submit any leave request, according to the whistleblower.
Vargas was allegedly 'successfully paid' during that period, claiming she was 'engaged in union activities' that is covered under taxpayer-funded union time.
In April 2020, Vargas was arrested yet again at around 1 a.m. local time
Vargas was arrested in May 2020 at 3:28 p.m. local time for 'driving under the influence of alcohol'
Addressing issues like these head on, Speaker Mike Johnson spoke about cracking down on teleworkers when Musk and Ramaswamy came to Capitol Hill early in December.
'We have long lamented the size and scope of the government, that it has grown too large,' Johnson said celebrating DOGE's initiative.
'Let me be frank about this, government is too big, it does too many things and it does almost nothing well.'
Then the speaker announced a policy that is sure to shock federal workers across D.C. and beyond.
'One of the first things that i think you'll see is a demand from the new administration, and from all of us in Congress, that federal workers return to their desks.'
Ernst had introduced a similar proposal aimed at tracking federal worker's computer activity.
Ernst's first DOGE-related bill, the REMOTE Act, will use software to monitor bureaucrats' computer use and require agency reports on the adverse impacts of telework.
The proposal will also provide key information on how to get D.C. back to work.
It comes after she found that only 6 percent of federal workers report in-person on a full-time basis.
