Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday met with a slate of state attorneys general at the White House as part of an ongoing effort to combat fraud.
Republican attorneys general from 15 states—and senior staff from the Democratic attorney general of Oregon—traveled to Washington for the White House meeting. Vance and other administration officials urged the states to partner with the federal government, particularly through their Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
Vance, whom Trump appointed in March to head the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, said at a press conference that federal enforcers need help from the state level.
“The resources of the federal government, while vast, can be supplemented and aided by a lot of the people who know best what’s happening in their states … the attorneys general represented here today,” Vance said before a closed-door portion of the meeting.
Democratic attorneys general from 23 states and the District of Columbia said that they were committed to combating Medicaid fraud, among other forms, but would skip the event.
In a letter reported by multiple outlets, the Democratic attorneys general said they were given “less than one business day’s notice” and “no agenda” by the administration.
“We want to be clear: we share a strong and ongoing commitment to combating fraud in all its forms, including Medicaid fraud,” the letter, signed by the 24 attorneys general, reads.
Among the signatories were California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose state the Trump administration has targeted for fraud investigations. Earlier this month, Vance announced that California would face the largest-ever Medicaid funding freeze, with the federal government pausing $1.3 billion in Medicaid funding for the state amid allegations of fraud.
Before convening a closed-door session with the attorneys general, Vance and others recapped recent accomplishments of federal fraud-fighting efforts and described strategies for further action.
“In just two months, we exposed billions of dollars in benefits that have been stolen from the American people,” Vance said.
He said that federal officials are now attempting to collect $22 billion in allegedly fraudulent small-business loans.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who heads the task force along with Vance, called government-program fraud “one of the most pressing problems this nation confronts.”
“It’s become clear that huge groups of people in this country are taking advantage of our longstanding culture of trust to enrich themselves at the expense of the American people,” Ferguson said.
Prosecutions are proceeding quickly under the Department of Justice’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division, said Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff.
Normally, a federal task force might take a year or more to produce results. However, Miller said, “within weeks of this task force being established, we’ve seen the largest-ever slate of indictments, recovered funds, search warrants, raids, seizures, investigations, and new legal actions to stop, disrupt, and prevent fraud.”
Colin McDonald, the assistant U.S. attorney general who heads the new anti-fraud division, noted that, in the first 50 days of its operation, the group has overseen 450 enforcement actions across the nation. Those successes include lodging Medicaid-fraud charges in $90 million worth of Minnesota schemes, filing accusations in a $650-million Arizona sober-homes racket, and securing a guilty plea in a $270-million California fraud case.
His division takes it “personally” whenever someone tries to “rob the United States” or “take money from a program designed to give money, food, [or] healthcare to the needy, the sick, and the elderly,” McDonald said.
McDonald also urged the state attorneys general to join the Justice Department’s new “special-attorneys program” that has set aside $300 million for combating fraud, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and crimes committed by illegal immigrants.