Kenneth Feinberg, the arbitrator of BP’s oil spill fund, has forwarded twelve names to the Justice Department for fraudulently attempting to get money from the claims fund as reported in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Bloomberg. Not only this, his legal team is currently examining 2000 other claims they suspect to be fraudulent. Said Feinberg, “The fund is working closely with the Department of Justice. We are internally reviewing hundreds of suspicious claims, and we are going to send any we deem fraudulent to the Department of Justice.”

A dozen already referred to the Justice Department, hundreds of suspicious claims…

Woah…those bastards, and congrats to Feinberg and his team for catching those trying to exploit a bad situation for their own gain…umm…and I was…well?

Here’s the thing, as I wrote three days ago, there have been 455,000 emergency claims made on the fund and the average of fraudulent claims after a disaster is typically 10%. By these measures, 45,000 of these claims could be considered fraudulent, but by Feinberg’s own estimation, they are reviewing only 2000.

2000 claims suspected of fraud out of 455,000.

Check my math, but that’s far less than even 1%, so it would appear that the people of the Gulf Coast are outstandingly honest in the grand scheme of things, and it would also mean that of the 173,000 claims that Feinberg has denied for poor documentation, by his own estimation, 171,000 are legitimate claims.

171,000 claims denied for poor documentation that aren’t suspected of being fraudulent.

I’m not exactly sure what Feinberg was doing when he made his announcements to the press about these twelve claims being forwarded to the Justice department, but it would seem reasonable he was trying to deflect some of the heat he has been getting lately from people like Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, who recently urged BP and Barack Obama  to make sure that people who accept a final payment don’t waive their right to sue not only BP, but any company associated with this oil spill.

If Feinberg is trying to get some cover, in my opinion the only thing he just did was show Gulf Coast residents are far more honest than average and that the real fraud going on down there is his denial of 171,000 legitimate claims for poor documentation.

And speaking of people trying to exploit a bad situation for personal gain…Feinberg? Your ears ringing? How much are you getting paid by BP? How much publicity are you seeking?

Stay out of the press, ya jackass.

Everybody else…

Have a nice day.