Vice President JD Vance and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson are meeting with state attorneys general as the Trump administration expands its federal benefits fraud crackdown.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom,
Vice President JD Vance is set to lead a White House roundtable Tuesday with state attorneys general focused on the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to combat fraud in federal benefits programs, welfare systems, health care payments and immigration-related programs.
Vance, chairman of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, will be joined by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who serves as vice chair of the task force. More than a dozen Republican attorneys general are expected to attend the event, which is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. ET and will be livestreamed:
President Donald Trump created the task force in March and directed Vance to lead federal investigations into schemes targeting government programs. The White House said the task force was designed to strengthen eligibility checks, stop improper payments before they are made, identify high-risk fraud patterns and dismantle networks used to defraud taxpayers.
“The Task Force will coordinate measures to improve eligibility verification, implement pre-payment controls, detect high-risk fraud trends, and disrupt and dismantle fraud networks and the mechanisms through which fraud is committed,” according to Trump’s executive order establishing the anti-fraud panel.
The meeting drew criticism from Democratic attorneys general, who declined to attend after receiving late invitations. According to Politico, Republicans were invited about a week before the roundtable, while Democratic attorneys general received invitations Friday with a Saturday deadline to RSVP. The event had initially been planned for Republican attorneys general only, but Democrats were later invited at Vance’s request, Politico reported.
A group of Democratic attorneys general sent Vance a joint letter Monday evening declining the invitation, saying they had been given “less than one business day’s notice with no agenda.”
“This short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners,” the Democratic attorneys general wrote.
Ahead of the roundtable, Vance’s office pointed to a series of actions the administration says have already been taken as part of the federal crackdown. On Feb. 25, the Trump administration halted nearly $260 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota over fraud allegations and demanded cooperation with federal investigators.
On March 19, federal prosecutors charged 11 people in a real estate and loan fraud ring accused of targeting elderly Americans in California. On March 25, the administration suspended dozens of high-risk hospice and home health providers in the Los Angeles area, and on March 30 it launched a national fraud whistleblower program.
The administration said additional action followed in April. On April 2, officials suspended hundreds more high-risk hospice and home health providers across California. On April 3, prosecutors charged more than a dozen people in a $50 million hospice fraud case. On April 7, the Department of Justice secured a guilty plea from a California defendant accused of filing $270 million in false reimbursement claims.
On April 8, DOJ confirmed it had 8,000 active fraud cases, while the task force uncovered $6.3 billion in suspected fraudulent government contracts and opened an investigation.
On April 15, the administration suspended 447 hospices and 23 home health agencies in Los Angeles, citing estimated fraud exceeding $600 million. On April 16, officials served criminal warrants and administrative charges on 20 Minnesota businesses suspected of SNAP fraud. The next day, DOJ announced that its National Fraud Enforcement Division had taken action in schemes totaling more than $340 million during its first week.
The Small Business Administration also referred 562,000 fraudulent or delinquent pandemic-era loans totaling $22 billion for collection on April 24. Four days later, DOJ conducted targeted enforcement operations at nearly two dozen Minnesota childcare centers suspected of systemic fraud.
On April 30, DOJ launched a West Coast Strike Force team focused on health care fraud across Arizona, Nevada and northern California. The same day, the administration deferred another $91 million in federal Medicaid funds from Minnesota, which officials described as non-cooperating.
The White House also highlighted several May actions. On May 12, officials identified more than 10,000 suspected fraud cases involving immigration student work programs. On May 13, the administration suspended $1.4 billion in home health and hospice funding nationwide, deferred $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid reimbursements for California, halted new Medicare enrollments for hospice providers nationwide, launched audits of Medicaid Fraud Control Units in all 50 states and blocked $60 million in fraudulent student loan applications during the first month of enhanced screening.
More recent Justice Department actions include May 20 charges against a Minneapolis daycare owner featured in a viral video by Nick Shirley. On May 21, DOJ expanded its Health Care Fraud Strike Force program by adding prosecutors to combat Medicaid fraud nationwide and charged 15 people in what officials described as a wide-ranging Minnesota health care fraud scheme, including the largest Medicaid loss amount ever charged in the state and the largest autism fraud scheme ever prosecuted.
Tuesday’s roundtable places state attorneys general at the center of the administration’s anti-fraud push as Vance and Ferguson seek additional coordination between federal agencies and state-level law enforcement officials. The administration has framed the task force as a broad effort to stop improper payments, investigate federal program abuse and recover taxpayer funds across multiple benefit systems.
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