Political Quotes

“A Civil War legislation called the False Claims Act has been on the books since that period of time. In 1986, I believe it was, I got some amendments to it that made it a much more valuable piece of legislation than it was before that time. It is called the False Claims Act, and it has brought, I think, something like $64 billion back into the Federal Treasury of fraudulently taken money since then. The problem today, even though it has been a successful law, is that the courts tend, from time to time, to neuter its capabilities by interpreting it in a way so it is not quite as effective. From time to time, we have passed legislation to overcome some of those court decisions. I am here today to talk about another opportunity this Senate has to make the False Claims Act the effective piece of legislation it was. So I want to alert my colleagues about the most recent limitations the courts have imposed on the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, for the very same purpose it serves today: to fight fraud, not just with military matters, as was the reason for doing it because the Union Army was being defrauded at that particular time, but, today, it fights fraud governmentwide. Today, it is the government's most powerful anti-fraud statute. That is because amendments that I offered in 1986 empowered whistleblowers to sue fraudsters on the government's behalf with or without the government's help.…”