Georgia Democrats are once again providing a master class in hypocrisy, and this time it comes with handcuffs. Another Democrat state lawmaker has been charged with fraud, adding to a growing list that is starting to look less like coincidence and more like a pattern.
State Rep. Dexter Sharp is accused of lying to obtain COVID era unemployment benefits, allegedly defrauding taxpayers out of more than $13,000. According to federal investigators, Sharp falsely claimed he was unemployed while quietly collecting government checks during the pandemic. This was not a one time paperwork mistake. Prosecutors say he submitted 38 separate weekly certifications repeating the same false claims.
CBS News reported that Sharp applied for unemployment benefits from April 2020 through May 2021, stating that he had not worked since March 13, 2020 and that he was actively seeking employment. The problem is that he was, in fact, very much employed. Authorities say Sharp was working as a member of the Georgia General Assembly, running his party rental business, and performing as a musician during the same period he was telling the government he had no job.
In other words, while small business owners were being crushed, families were panicking, and workers were genuinely out of work, a sitting Democrat lawmaker allegedly decided to help himself to emergency funds meant for people in real need.
U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg did not sugarcoat it. “While many of his constituents and fellow citizens were losing jobs and desperately needed unemployment assistance during the pandemic, Representative Sharper allegedly pretended to be out of work to collect a share of unemployment benefits for himself,” Hertzberg said. He added that this kind of conduct “violates the trust of citizens and weakens faith in our elected government.”
That last line is doing a lot of work, because this is not an isolated incident. Sharp is now the third Georgia Democrat lawmaker in recent months to face fraud charges tied to government benefits.
In December, Rep. Sharon Henderson was charged with making false statements and stealing government funds. In January, Rep. Karen Bennett stepped down from office before pleading guilty to making false statements. That is three Democrat lawmakers in one state, all caught allegedly gaming the system they publicly claim to defend.
And this all happened under the cover of COVID, when Democrats were demanding more lockdowns, more spending, and more emergency powers. They told everyone else to stay home, shut down businesses, and wait for government relief, then allegedly dipped into that relief themselves.
This is why public trust is in free fall. Voters are constantly lectured about equity, sacrifice, and collective responsibility, while the politicians doing the lecturing appear to be treating taxpayer money like a personal slush fund. When fraud shows up repeatedly on one side of the aisle, people start asking uncomfortable questions about culture and accountability.
Georgia is just one state. These are just the cases that made it far enough to trigger indictments. If this is what surfaces in a single state legislature, it raises a far bigger question about how widespread pandemic era fraud really was, and who benefited the most from it.
Democrats love to frame themselves as champions of the little guy. Stories like this suggest that, for some of them, the little guy was staring back from the mirror.
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