Jon Stewart Goes Head to Head With Pentagon Official, & Defends Elon’s Audit.

So some months ago, Kathleen Hicks was invited by Jon Stewart to explain how it is that the Defense Department has been in failure mode across the past six budget audits that have taken place. (Kathleen Hicks is Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Defense.)

In August of 2024, 64% of the Pentagon's assets were unaccounted for.

For whatever reason, the woman chosen to defend the Defense Department was shrill, condescending and certainly so beyond being arrogant that she felt chuckling in waves of laughter over Stewart's "stupidity" would earn her points with Stewart's audience, as well as with the American people.

C-SPAN still has that interview. It is worth watching even in the pared-down version that is presented.

Elon Musk was so impressed with Stewart's ability to withstand the brittle condemnation he faced, that today Elon posted a partial video segment of the interview on his "X" feed.

Hicks actually lies when she tries to explain to Stewart that no audit is expected to determine where an accurate inventory of purchased items is.

What a liar she is. From dealing with accountancy and local political matters, I know that the term for that type of an audit is "a physical audit." It means, for example, that if the local private university orders 600 binders, then those binders should have a purchase invoice, a receipt for delivery, the location where they were stored and the school buildings or department heads where those items were eventually sent off to. It would be left to that university's auditors to figure out the location of all these things. And then they would figure out all the many other items that were purchased or sold in a similar fashion.

Yet Hicks not only lies, she then goes on to laugh at Stewart for his focusing on "the dollar." I mean, why should a department of the government that receives trillions of dollars from the US taxpayer in the space of ten years need to ever focus on a dollar? (Or any collection of dollars?) Perhaps if Stewart were a senator or a four-star general, she would not shower him with disrespect. But Stewart is only a comedian/citizen. So like all the rest of us who are only citizens, he is worthy only of her ridicule and contempt.

Here is the 6 minutes of that interview:

BTW, one notable audit that came to my attention when I lived in Marin County was how one of the mayors of the city of Fairfax, population 60K plus, decided to audit the operations of that city.

His decision was met with disbelief by his friends and neighbors: "No. Please don't do this! Don't spend valuable time and money on such a project. You know us. You know almost all of Fairfax's employees. We are honest and we wouldn't embezzle! Why do you think otherwise?"

This man persisted in his decision regardless of these protests.

And just as the friends and neighbors had explained, it was shown that many of them who worked in the city departments were indeed honest.

The audit was a physical audit. So auditors did inventories and located everything pertinent to purchased items. For instance, the invoice for X number of ping pong tables did exist, and then records showed their delivery date along with proof of which schools and youth centers finally received them.

But the audit also showed that someone somewhere along the way had been sloppy.

Some 9 or 10 years prior to the audit, the then-city manager decided the city's phone system was outdated. She undertook the activity of getting a different phone company to agree to come in and update the phones, cables, electrical circuits and more. Once both parties agreed, the new phone company was given $100,000 for the first year's work plus equipment and installation expenses.

Then for reasons having nothing to do with phone systems, that city manager found herself a job that paid more than Fairfax was paying her. Whether she explained the new deal with the new phone firm to one of her colleagues or she did not, I never found out.

But the new phone company failed to show up. Inside the city with all its various departments and department heads, no one knew about this deal so that they could perform oversight and remind the company about its obligation. (Or if they did know of the deal, they had forgotten about the matter.)

The new phone company's accountants did remember to bill the City of Fairfax for its yearly end of that initial contract. Every year, a bill was sent off asking the city to pay out $90,000, and every year the city paid that bill.

So by the time the new mayor's audit was concluded, the city of Fairfax was able to go and ask that phone company for restoration of all monies that it had received for doing absolutely nothing. The city then received close to 1 million dollars.

And that is what happens when just one audit for one small city is conducted properly. We taxpayers need to hold tight to the idea that Elon Musk and his team of savvy techies and auditors will do equally well, although on a much, much larger scale. It is so very completely needed.