Inspector General: Obama Paid $300 Million To ‘People Who Don’t Exist’

Fact checked
According to special inspector general John Sopko, Obama wasted at least $300 million on the salaries of "people who don't exist".

Barack Obama will always be remembered for a series of highly irregular overseas payments to authoritarian regimes, however according to a report by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, those wasted millions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Obama’s largesse. 

According to special inspector general John Sopko, Obama wasted at least $300 million on the salaries of “people who don’t exist”, who were supposedly operating in Afghanistan, far away from the prying eyes of U.S. oversight. That’s not just fraud, folks. In fact, according to Sopko, it’s “Major fraud.”

Where did the money go?

“We’ve been raising this concern about ghosts going back a number of years,” Sopko told Sharyl Attkinson of Full Measure.

“Actually I want to say we heard about it from (Afghan President) Ashraf Ghani years ago, before he became president, he warned me about ‘ghosts,’ so we started looking three years ago.”

“What we’re talking about are policemen, Afghan policemen, Afghan military, Afghan civil servants who don’t exist or they have multiple identity cards and we’re paying their salaries,” he explained. “By ‘we’ I mean the United States and the international community. And we started finding out that we had no capacity to measure the number of soldiers, teachers, doctors, military people who we are paying their salaries.”




Fox News had even reported as early as October 2016 that, based on a Sopko letter released to the Pentagon, the fraud could have amounted to more than $300 million annually.

“In January 2015 we reported that more than $300 million in annual, U.S.-funded salary payments to the Afghan National Police were based on only partially verified or reconciled data, and that there was no assurance that personnel and payroll data were accurate. We found similar deficiencies during the course of our April 2015 audit of Afghan National Army personnel and payroll data,” wrote Sopko.

That’s not just fraud, folks. According to Sopko, it’s “Major fraud. And what’s happening is the commanders or generals or other higher officials are actually pocketing the salaries of the ghosts.”

“And I remember President Ghani again, at that time he wasn’t president, saying, ‘John, you the United States government are paying the salary of an Afghan who’s a teacher, he’s a civil servant, he’s a doctor, he is a policeman, and he’s a soldier. And it’s the same Afghan. And he doesn’t exist,’” Sopko explained.

“It’s not just the salaries,” he added. “But we’re funding schools based upon the number of students, so if you invent or inflate the number of students, you’re going to be paying more money. On the soldiers and the police, we’re paying for extra boots, for food, for everything else, logistics for numbers that don’t exist.”

This is bad enough as it is, but to make matters worse, apparently Sopko had alerted the Pentagon on numerous occasions to what he had discovered in 2016, but…as you can imagine…the Obama administration did nothing about it.

Thankfully, though, there’s a new sheriff in town, and proper measures are finally being put into place to put an end to this nonsense.

According to the Independent Journal Review, Attkinsson notes that the Pentagon is implementing a biometric system that will be checking fingerprints, photos, and even blood type in order to verify “proof of life” and get rid of the “ghosts.”

She added that the Pentagon said it had “up to 95 percent of the Afghan police and 70-80 percent of soldiers” enrolled in the program.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s very encouraging to hear that we’re finally addressing this issue and taking measures to get this under control, but it’s equally discouraging to think about all the millions of taxpayer dollars that will never be recovered. What do you think?

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry is a writer at The People's Voice. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.
Email: baxter@thepeoplesvoice.tv
Baxter Dmitry

188 Comments

  1. I never trust people with lisps who have good dentists In the old days kids would be expelled from Uni if they couldnt correct speech impediments like lisps or stuttering.Now they just marry dubiously and become the most powerful man on earth or some such fabrication.As if a barren Rothschild couldnt crush them like a bug.300 million Whats that Down payment in a new spa bath for the yacht?

  2. This is obviously the result of President Trump sending hundreds of auditors to the Pentagon last year. We had a similar problem with unaccounted funds back in 2001 when Donald Rumsfeld said we were missing several $$$Trillion from the account while Dov Zackheim was overseeing things. A meeting of the auditors was scheduled on Sept. 11th but the office and auditors became ‘ground zero’ in the Pentagon Attack.

  3. This discovery is probably the result of the hundreds of auditors that President Trump sent over to the Pentagon last year. In 2001, Donald Rumsfeld blithely stated that we were missing several $$$Trillion from the account and scheduled a joint meeting with auditors and Dov Zackhiem who was the chief ‘counter for the morning of Sept. 11th. The office meeting became ‘ground zero’ during the terror attack and we never found out what happened to the missing funds.

    • This certainly played out as a major distraction to keep us from finding out where and how the Clintons were fraudulently stashing $$ and to keep XP George W. Bush otherwise occupied with a war on his hands!
      The extent of the Criminality on the part of the Democrats is OBSCENE!

  4. I would bet $300 million that much, or some of that money, eventually ended up in Obamas, or his cronies bank accounts. He certainly went into the presidency worth somewhere close a million, and left office a mutli-millionaire. Look at his lifestyle now, and the purchases he has made. Go figure.

    • Same for bubba and his wench. Left office with millions in campaign debt into a 21 million dollar cottage and amassed a huge fortune through graft and corruption.

    • But you can only have so much house. You can only have so big of a car. You can only travel so much

      Whatever it was he said while all the socialists clap clap clapped. I didn’t put it in quotes anyway, but I don’t need some leftist moron telling me that’s not what he said while at the same time defending Chelsea Huble for saying she was in prison for a year.

    • One example: “Publishing executives are reportedly ‘on notice’ for allegedly paying Hillary Clinton $14 million for her highly-anticipated memoir which sold just 161,000 copies in its first three weeks.” From Daily Mail. Just one of many ways to make the criminal lib politicians rich!

    • But the monies obtained by Obama should be taxable . . . unless he pulled a Geithner (non-reporting of Russian funds . . . until questioned).

  5. Mueller is investigating the wrong people! How much did obama and his minions steel from the American People? Thank God for President Trump, if it weren’t for him we would be giving away all our money and sovereignty to the One World Order scheme! We need to clean out of so many bureaucrats that think they run the government, which right now they still do, send them packing! We need patriots running the country! Time to take our country back!

    • The only reason Mueller is on this witch hunt is to distract from the real criminals, namely Obama, Hillary, deep state, etc. What I don’t get is how is the Mueller investigation preventing the real criminals from being investigated and prosecuted? What the hell are they waiting for?

      • Podesta’s “immunity” is a perfect example of how Mueller is not only distracting but destroying evidence by charging (in many cases) the wrong ppl. IOWs Trump’s Associates only.

        • I think the irregularities and extremely complex nature of this investigation is intended to keep citizens from actually knowing what is going on.

        • Mueller is also helping the Dems cover their tracks. ‘Someone’ told the Podesta brothers they needed to go get registered as agents of a foreign government at the same time Mueller was looking into Manafort being an unregistered agent of a foreign government. So they were allowed to back-date their registration while Manafort wasn’t allowed the same warning. At the time this was all going on, Manafort was working for the Podesta Group on behalf of Ukraine. I’m betting that certain ‘someone’ was Mueller warning the Podestas to go registered after the fact.

          • If Tucker Carlson is correct, Podesta will be getting immunity for the same thing Manafort is charged with for his testimony against him! We will find out soon.

          • My hope is that the very same “surveillance” used against Trump will expose all the attempts to coverup the obvious treason committed by the previous administrations. Someone needs to hang!

      • For the statute of limitations to run out. They will never see a courtroom or jail. The only way these people will pay is by Karma they have set into motion.

      • The though has crossed my mind, but the vitriol and threats of violence scares me. People stand at the patriot corner with our signs and flags to inform and support the President. We get lots of honks and thanks, but lately we get called a lot of profanity laced words, flipped the bird with such hatred and animosity, it can get scary. Our congressman had his kick off campaign and he had 3 or4 FBI agents there to protect him. Very sad!

    • There is also several billion dollars missing from the State Department too from when Hillary was running it. No one seems to care to look for it. I think I heard 5 or 8 billion but don’t feel like looking it up right now. I’m sure people would be going to jail if the Inspector General cared enough to look into it.

      • Yes, they still don’t know about that. We don’t know if anyone has looked into this. The last report I can find was from the Daily Caller from 2016. ” Inspector General (IG) who found in three investigations and two audits that an estimated $6 billion was lost to contract mismanagement, fraud and incompetence during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state” No other credible site had updated information, that I could find. I’m hoping Mike Pompeo might be looking.

  6. Where did it go ? It went into an overseas bank account for Obama. How is he living in an $8M mansion ? This is the last anyone will hear of this. Nobody will bring this up again. They’re too busy bashing Trump.

  7. I think the SOB should pay it back to our government and then put on trial and jailed, waiting for execution!

  8. This is not new information. The DoD conducted this audit years ago. Their lack of oversight in spending congressionally approved funds is the cause. That corrective action has been taken is also not news. None of the 3 POTUS who have served during the Afghanistan & Iraq wars have any culpability in this matter. But leave it to fake news yournewswire to refashion the story into a scheme, with no eveidence & easily chosen words to deliberately misinform its readers. Cheers!

  9. I get it! Just slough off $300 mill here, $300 mill there– it doesn’t matter, it’s all just bookkeeping entries from the Federal Reserve for Treasury Securities that are only bookkeeping entries. NO control, no supervision, no direct authorization, just put it on the Neo-Con American Express Black Card and send the bill to the Comptroller.

    That proves we don’t need a bicameral government. Just give it to big mac daddy B. Hussein Obamadinejad and he will “redistribute our wealth to his corrupt buddies and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74fc894669dd486f598e170933460c3412cabdf1dfe56037e52047c61157bc76.jpg

  10. I’m solidly with the inspector general. This is major fraud and moreover, why isn’t Obama not being held accountable for this? Are our leaders now able to up commit any crime they see that will bring them in cash? I’d venture to say that a lot of the money didn’t just go into the pockets of ghosts but it went into the pocket of a major ghost by the name of Barrock Obama. There’s you main culprit. Obama is the very bird scamming the United States tax payers. Then they want to talk about the poor people getting a check every month and dare to call them entitlements. After we paid into it with our hard earned dollars that they robbed us and our families from. I say Obama is a robber and a thief and needs to be brought to justice for this right along with all his other crimes which seem to be adding up daily. He’s not above being arrested. Arrest him!

  11. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Obama was sending money to the people we were at war with.
    Our Rules of Engagement were some of the most idiotic things you’d ever hear of until you realized they were lefty ideas, then it was just par for the course. Stand down orders during fire fights and my favorite; you can’t fire on an enemy who is holding a grenade launcher until you’re fired upon. If you survive the blast, I assume.

  12. I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama was getting kickbacks from it. He has made multiple millions over the last decade, and it sure as hell wasn’t from the POTUS salary.

  13. What do I think?
    I think the more I find out about former resident Obama and his chicanery, the more I dislike him. Detest would be more accurate.

  14. Obama should be held accountable, and go to prison for not having done anything about it. He should be held accountable for $300 million, and because he is allegedly now suddenly worth almost $100 million from a netfix deal, a book, and his speaking agreements, (which is a lot more than the $3 million he was worth in 2008, when he entered the presidency) he obviously can afford it. Perhaps that is where the money went……

    • It was $300 Mil per year, I think over the many years we were in Afghanistan that has to add up to a Trillion dollars in money that went into pockets and accounts of unknown actors. Taliban, Jihadis, ISIS… who knows. Sure there was more than likely a kickback for ‘looking the other way’ and certainly HE did that and more! IF it could be proven that the money went to aid our enemy than he’s more than guilty of Major Fraud, he’s guilty of sedition and Treason!

  15. How can these criminals be brought to justice when our law enforcement agencies and court systems are so corrupt? Pres. Trump cannot do it by himself. There is no constitutional authority for the POTUS to bring people to justice. We are SO screwed!

  16. Y’all put an African in charge, then act surprised when you become a banana republic.You crackers are funny.

  17. The left has been embezzling from the government & taxpayers for decades. It’s nothing new. They create a government agency / function then, throw money at it so that the money lands where they want it to.

  18. Don’t worry folks. These expenditures were never meant for public consumption and we’ll never know where that money actually went or how many American servicemen died as a result of it. It appears that the country is all but lost and everybody fiddles while the place burns down around us. I am convinced that Nikita Kruchev was a clairvoyant when he promised to use our own institutions to bury us. We have been led down the path to our own destruction and now we are attempting to whistle our way past the graveyard. Our last chance lay with the election of Donald J. Trump and we see that those who sewed the seeds of our demise are all arrayed against him. After the adoption of the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin was asked ” What kind of government did we have ? ” He answered, ” A Constitutional Republic, if you can keep it ? ” Well, folks, it looks like we have lost and I doubt that we will ever get it back.

  19. These people need to hang: Obama… Clinton… Clapper… Brennan… Strozk… Mueller… Rosenstein… the whole lot of them! They are shameless, treasonous, on tiseditious POS — every one of them! — Each of whom will one day have to stand before Almighty God & give account for their actions. Sadly, because we know nothing of any great consequence on this earth is EVER going to happen to them, we the innocent victims of their corruption have to content ourselves with the Promise of God’s Righteous Judgment on all unrepentant sinners.

  20. his muslim friends got the cash, taxpayers got the debt…that’s why everybody “loves” him

  21. With XP BHO involved in a major fraud scheme that allowed at least $300Mill per yr to be “lost” and go undetected, or when investigated and reported, for nothing to be done about It, it is no wonder that Government never moved forward!
    This may have been the green light that Sec. of State HRC needed to continue her “International Fonzi-Ponzi scheme”, unless this was part of her scheme or they were in this together!

  22. This is why the special council is attacking Trump, as misdirection to avoid the true scandals.

  23. I’m overjoyed that fraud like this is being reported on. When are we going to have the trials and convictions?

  24. Worse than an administration with corrupted ideals and values is the propaganda media sector . . . All in the name of the United States of America.

  25. A lot of that money likely went into the Obama’s pockets. They had little money when they went to the WH, but He was worth 8 million, and she worth 7 million, when they left. They got that money from somewhere.

  26. It wouldn’t shock in the least if 50% of that “ghost money” wound up in the hands of Obama’s jihad buddies (or the ISI), and the other 50% wound up in an off-shore account accessible by ‘Barry Soweto’.

  27. Obama gifted ghosts $300 million annually?? Think of how that money would have benefited real Americans – it is, after all, their money!! Obama belongs in prison with his goombah crooked Hillary.

  28. Obama has a lot of relatives needing financial support. It’s an African thing, you wouldn’t get it.

  29. Kinda wondered how 0 could walk out of the White House and live like a billionaire playboy. The Clintons couldn’t just ask them!

  30. I was an anti-corruption manager in Iraq 2004-2006, and we had the same situation as documented in Sigir.mil (now archived at a college). Many of the funds were distributed to the local nationals (Iraqis) who paid ghost salaries in lieu of a non-existent retirement system. This was a well known practice before SIGAR was formed in Afghanistan. This is not new. The STATE Dept. is the one who authorized payments in Afghanistan. I was also there in 2009 leading a team of Afghans teaching anti-corruption and internal audit skills to Afghan ministry auditors. We were told of so much corruption that contractor shut down the audit skills program to avoid a political hot potato and not lose a much larger training program contract. Sopko at SIGAR.mil and SIGIR.mil in Iraq reported many issues like this which the Federal government and State Dept. ignored. In Iraq, the Embassy had an anti-corruption committee that I was on, and they refused to take any actions we recommended.

  31. it’s equally discouraging to think about all the millions of taxpayer dollars that will never be recovered. What do you think? Well HERE’S WHAT I THINK CAPTURE OBAMA SIEGE ALL HIS REAL ESTATE AND BANK ACCOUNTS AND OTHER ASSETS , IMPRISON THE SON OF A BITCH AND RETURN ALL THE FUNDS TO SOCIAL SECURITY FUNDS THAT WAS STOLE FROM THE PEOPLES ACCOUNTS OR EITHER USE THE FUNDS TO BUILD THE BORDER WALLS. BUT SENTENCE OBAMA TO HARD LABOR OR BETTER YET 6 COUNTS OF TREASON PLACE HIM BEFORE THE FIRING SQUAD AND MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE SWISS CHEESE…..THEN MAYBE THE COMMIE LIBERALS WILL THINK TWICE ABOUT CORRUPTION>>>>> UNTIL THIS HAPPENS WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY OF LAWS. ~

  32. Where is the constitutional authority for the US government to steal from American tax payers and to then take those stolen fund and pay them to afghani foreigners in the foreign country of afghanistan, a country that the US congress did not declare war on, and then have the audacity to fritter away and lose those funds through theft, graft and fraud? no such authority exists!

  33. The Pentagon has no accountability and they are very arrogantly about it as we saw from this last audit. That this was perpetrated by Obama is certainly no surprise. Too bad we will never see him held accountable for his treason.

    • whats your problem? bush started the wars, obama continued the wars, and now that fat orange pig ramped up the wars by 70% over the last criminals, he is the current criminal, you supporters are the most ignorant of all of them, dont even start this DID YA WANT HILLARY? no i didnt alot of people voted for the pig like me and they are now sorry, both parties are corrupt, PERIOD………

      • What a brainwashed moron, you need to get punched in the face to snap back into reality. Yiu did good voting for Trump, now if only your lemon for a brain could distinguish truth from fiction, lofl

        • listen bull dog shit, you are a brainless faggot, everything i said was the truth you queer basterds need the shit beat out of you by some one smarter than you, that fat orange pig is the worst disgrace yet, you gay boys stick yur tongue in that fat orange pigs ass, and taste the defeat…………

        • hey bull piss your head just looks like another ingrown dick, yur mother is just another mexican incubator for a litter of scum like you………….

      • What’s with the childish name-calling? You have some serious anger management issues you might want to address.

      • You must be talking about yourself Kent, You the orange pig, and brainwashed DemoRat. FYI, For each one corrupt Rino there R 5 corrupt DemoRts!

        • both filthy parties are corrupt, there is no difference , its a UNIPARTY, the left and right are a sick joke, just like you are , buttlicker, crawl up the orange pigs ass you butt worm………..

      • Pig is your mom who carried you 9 month and give you the opportunity for the first breath of air.

        • what toilet did you crawl out of? all you morons know is licking the orange ass of that fat pig in the slop house, none of you headless corpses got thru any school at all……….. you are all FAILURES ……

          • KENT FORD OPINION NOT TRUE AGAIN AS BEFORE AND ALWAYS IN EVERYTHING PRESENTED ABOVE.

        • big MISTAKE you are another uneducated imbicile, you like filth in the govmnt, another useful idiot……….. go bug somebody else, you stink……….

        • learn to read you illiterate hag, thats all the pig has done is ramp up more wars in the middle east, the pig is pushing for war with china, and our faggot military will lose………. all you losers are the same FILTH that support that fat pig……

  34. Just another article “in your face” about the Obama regime and its deep seated corruption and NOTHING WILL BE DONE ABOUT IT.

  35. Meanwhile in America… we have porous borders, growing homelessness, crumbling infrastructure & the tax slaves who pay & pay & pay are being pacified by the Mockingbird Media. No wonder the deep state hates Trump, he’s slowly shutting their fast & loose money down.

  36. According to mark skidmore of the university of Michigan there is 21 trillion in unaccounted spending in hud & the dod alone since 2000. The US government has been out of control for a long time but things got much worse under Obama

  37. Not surprised, Barry Soetoro is a traitor, liar, thief, cheater, pedophile, Coke addict, embezzler, warmonger and murderer.

    Several of our other still living previous Presidents also are guilty of multiple serious crimes and should be held accountable. America has had a very corrupt government for a long time.

      • Frank didn’t honor the kenyan with his name! Bwahahaha That’s a very low bar and barry the kenyan didn’t measure up. And we elected or facilitated his elections with second rate GOP hand-picked candidates.

    • The problem is that crime is so prevalent in all politics its anti constructive to point fingers at a particular party. I am not real impressed with who Shopko says is causing all the theft. No one is charged with responsibility to account for the missing money. Its just plain criminal and the people in charge don’t care. I think there are so many involved in this scam and others why would they blow the cover off these criminals.

  38. Nothing evil will stop UNTIL THE PEOPLE FORCE IT TO BE STOPPED.
    Based on years of observing, the people are just too stupid to STOP IT.

  39. ISIS funding…those shiny new matching Toyota trucks … weapons…supplies…human trafficking…it takes money for that…

  40. Well, if he is working for Soros where do we think the money would be going? The guy is like an endless money pit. He destroys economies, buys up everything, then when they eventually bounce back… even more money to use against humanity. He has done this over and over and over! We know what he did to the Jews. Do you think you’re any better. I hope he’s first !

  41. four more years of serial lying? the pig is a PSCHYO , you braindead love being lied to, daily lies, no the fat orange pig needs his FILTHY MOUTH WASHED OUT FOR LYING TO EVERYBODY, get it PISSREAL?

      • no asswipe the fat pig you love lays in the oval slop house and shits all over himself, your tongue is orange from licking the pigs ass, keep licking…what an ignorant name you have………leave the country you are an illegal for sure……….

        • Loser,I am American citizen legal immigrant and paying a lot of tax. You are the one who probably getting in your ass and your leekers getting not orange ,they getting real shit like you.

  42. I keep hearing about all these bad things, unlawful, treasonous things from #44 and his minions but I’ve yet to see any of them pay for their crimes against our country!! If it were Joe 6Pack you know that wouldn’t be the case!!! GET THEM NOW!!!! DO THE RIGHT THING!!!

  43. Our govt. has always been corrupt, but the LEVEL of it has risen since Obama was in charge & the saddest part of all of this is that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO ANY OF THEM & CONSEQUENCES ARE SOMETHING THEY CAN’T EVEN SPELL. This country is doomed unless justice is servied & i personally don’t see that happening.

  44. Yeah and I am still WAITING for that social security stimulus from the obama administration where the letter said to ‘do nothing’.

  45. I think Barr is a fraud and both Barr and Obama should be in prison but even Trump doesn’t have spine enough to do it.

  46. “but it’s equally discouraging to think about all the millions of taxpayer dollars that will never be recovered.” I think the word you’re looking for is billions.

  47. I hope Obama is held accountable for the traitorous activities he has been perpetrating on the American people.

  48. Stop the CHINA make SILK ROAD
    Construction thru Asia+ Europe+ Africa for worl control with 5G•
    Avoid the RFID chip and Slavery••

  49. Nkgoo, geniş kapsamlı bilgi platformudur. Her konuda bilgi içeriği üretme amacıyla yayın hayatına başlamış referans kaynak sitedir. Ayrıca telif hakları konularına da özen gösterilmektedir.

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