Law360 (August 20, 2024, 2:24 PM EDT) -- A pandemic watchdog office is poised to shutter in seven months — its pleas for an extension have gone unheeded. But in the meantime, its remaining employees, some working away in their nondescript Alexandria office, others from their homes, are hustling to recover millions of dollars from COVID-19 fraudsters.

The special inspector general for pandemic recovery was established by the CARES Act to investigate certain loans, loan guarantees and investments that the U.S. Department of the Treasury made for COVID-19 relief.

"We're going full steam ahead until the doors actually shut," Miller told Law360 during an interview at his office in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday. "We're still doing the cases; we're still developing new cases. I don't want to see anyone who has defrauded these programs get away with it."

According to the IG's August fact sheet, the office of investigations since 2020 has yielded over $60.3 million in court-ordered restitution, fines and penalties, which is 6% more than its allocated budget since inception.

There are 40 open cases with 130 potential defendants. The cases they're investigating involve potential fraud totaling more than $562 million.

But the IG is warning that the majority of the loans in their jurisdiction don't mature until March, which is when the office is due to sunset under the law.

There is "an alarming rate of defaults by borrowers who are failing to pay even the interest payments on the loans for both the Main Street Lending Program and Treasury's Direct Loan Program," the IG said in the fact sheet.

The office is working to transition staff to other agencies and get ready to transfer cases to other watchdogs when it shutters. As of May, there were 34 employees in the office, down from 51 in July 2023, according to a report released that month.

"Unfortunately, I'm not very optimistic they'll be taken up" as other inspectors general offices are already stretched with their resources, Miller said. New agents would have to take over these cases and essentially start all over again, he added.

As for an extension, Miller and his team say they've gotten good reception on the Hill from lawmakers in both parties and chambers, but no one has championed a bill to make it happen.

Regarding the Biden administration, "we have very strong support of individuals within the executive branch" and they say they've spoken with then-American Rescue Plan Coordinator Gene Sperling and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, among others, but "I'm not sure this is on their radar," Miller said.

When asked for comment, the Office of Management and Budget referred to the Treasury Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The watchdog office has previously faced a funding crunch and had its jurisdiction narrowed to only a single subtitle of the CARES Act, following an opinion from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. This was after the pandemic and Treasury inspectors general had what Miller called "turf battles" over their investigative work. After several months of this the matter went to the OLC to decide.

Miller told Law360 in the months after the decision that the office pivoted to doing a "deeper dive" into the programs that they could review, but regarding the matters they had to abandon, "I just wished we could continue because we have set up the knowledge and expertise to do those cases."

Miller was confirmed in June 2020 after facing skepticism from Democrats due to his previous role as senior associate White House counsel for President Donald Trump.

Miller said the current situation with the watchdog office gives him déjà vu to being looked over when he was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in the early 2000s and was nominated to be the General Services Administration's inspector general.

He recalled there was a long wait because he was told no one had anything strong or against him.

"Nobody really objects, but we don't really have a champion either," he said.

--Additional reporting from Jon Hill. Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.