It’s fraud. Just like the book deals politicians get after they get out of office are bribes. Even if the people that are paying the bribe have to buy every copy of the book and put them in a warehouse somewhere or burn them. I’ll take your point about congress and say if Congress allocated money for the purposes of bribing someone overseas under the pretense of using it for something else that just means they’re in on the fraud.
Discussion
I don't understand what's fraudulent about it? By definition, it cannot be fraud. The constitution does not dictate or spell out in any way what kinds of spending Congress can make.
So how is it fraud? It's all out in the open. Go read the last omnibus bill. Read through usapending.gov.
Congress allowing and allocating/giving the ok for the Pentagon to buy 20k toilets doesn't make it fraud.
The allocations and spending is absolutely insane. No question and I hope it ends. But I don't see how it can be fraud.
It’s fraud if the stated allocation is a cover up for something else. Or even just overpaying on line item A because funding for line item B from the same company is approved at a level lower than the people buying line item B were hoping for.
Kind of like the idea that care for veterans especially veterans wounded in war isn’t counted as defense spending.
Wasting your breath, people will excuse the type similar to what they would use or are benefiting from elsewhere or wish to use in future...
Article 1 section 9 clause 7 of the US Constitution. Lying about what the money is used for in the books is defrauding the taxpayers.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-9/
