Vice President JD Vance says he will partner with the Treasury and Justice Departments in a government-wide effort to investigate and prosecute large-scale public benefits fraud.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom,
Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that he will work alongside the Treasury and Justice Departments in what President Donald Trump described as a nationwide “war on fraud,” following the president’s announcement during his State of the Union address.
Appearing in an interview aired Wednesday, Vance outlined a coordinated approach involving federal prosecutors and financial investigators aimed at identifying and prosecuting individuals accused of misusing public assistance programs.
Trump said during Tuesday night’s address that he was appointing Vance to oversee the administration’s response to public welfare fraud, citing recent revelations of large-scale benefit schemes linked to members of the Somali expat community in Minneapolis.
While the president did not detail the full extent of Vance’s authority, the vice president said the effort would be conducted jointly with the Justice and Treasury Departments.
“The Department of Justice is going to be investigating and, where possible, throwing fraudsters in prison,” Vance said. “It’s also going to mean that [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent and some of our friends at the Treasury Department, [are] going to be looking at income tax records.
“We’re going to be trying to understand how it is that the American people have been defrauded, how it is that people have used resources and programs that should go to American citizens, instead have been going to fraudulent uses,” he added.
Vance said the administration intends to move “very aggressively” in the coming year and suggested that investigators will examine whether individuals without legal status improperly accessed federal and state benefits.
“The story of the American economy in so many ways during the Biden administration … is that the American citizen was ripped off for people who shouldn’t be here and by politicians who should have known better,” he said. “The president has asked me to take a full, whole government approach to trying to understand that.”
The renewed focus on public benefits fraud follows investigations in Minnesota that uncovered widespread misuse of taxpayer-funded programs. Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has acknowledged the scope of the fraud in his state and said officials are working to address the issue.
The administration has not yet released a formal directive detailing the structure of the initiative or whether new task forces will be created, but Vance indicated that multiple agencies would be coordinating to examine financial records and pursue criminal cases where warranted.
The vice president’s comments signal that fraud enforcement will become a central priority in the administration’s domestic policy agenda in the months ahead.
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