Every aspiring college-age cub reporter learns that you never bury the lead on a story. But sure enough, six New York Times investigative reporters never learned that Journalism 101 lesson.

In this latest front page NYT story ripping DOGE and Elon Musk, we learn in the 43rd(!) paragraph that the government identified $236 billion (that’s with a B, folks) of fraudulent government payments in 2023.

The dollar amount of federal fraud in just one year is a bigger number than the entire budget of virtually every state in America. But apparently, Elon Musk is the villain for trying to ferret it out.