Even the Washington Post has finally woken up to the astonishing scope of the waste, fraud, and abuse in the most reckless spending bill in American history: Biden’s $1.9 trillion “COVID relief” bill.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” says Matthew Schneider, a former U.S. attorney from Michigan. “It is the biggest fraud in a generation.”

Hundreds of billions of COVID relief dollars have disappeared into the pockets of scammers and the undeserving. Of more than $700 billion in pandemic unemployment assistance Congress approved, an estimated $163 billion fell into the hands of foreign fraudsters, and most of that went to syndicates that have the backing of hostile governments. The bill’s other programs had similar sky-high fraud rates.

But even this mega fraud has its apologists. “I think it was well-intended to get relief out as quickly as possible to save lives,” Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland told the Washington Times. “And we recognize that too much of the accountability standards can slow down the process.”

“Clearly, we’ve got to get that balance right,” he said. “And to the extent where we see these international crooks ripping us off, we didn’t get the balance correct.”