WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the White House on Monday establishing a new federal task force aimed at combating fraud in government programs, placing Vice President JD Vance in charge of the effort.
The task force will take a “whole-of-government” approach to identifying fraud and recovering taxpayer dollars that Trump said could amount to billions, or even hundreds of billions, of dollars.
“This executive order will establish a new task force on fraud returning potentially billions of tens of billions hundreds of billions of dollars to the American taxpayer,” Trump said before signing the order. “This task force will be chaired by the vice president.”
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson will serve as vice chair of the task force.
Trump pointed to examples of alleged large-scale fraud in states such as Minnesota and California, saying investigations have already uncovered significant losses tied to government programs.
As an example, Trump cited what he described as a major fraud scheme in Minnesota involving government benefits.
“It’s pretty big in Minnesota, $19 billion, but that’s only for one aspect of the fraud,” Trump said. “In California they say it’s ten times worse.”
Trump said fraud appears to be concentrated in certain areas but emphasized that investigations will occur nationwide.
“This is not a Republican Democrat thing,” Trump said. “If it’s a red state we’re going there too.”
The president also referenced Somali-linked fraud networks when discussing the Minnesota case.
“When you look at the Minnesota scam a lot of it has to do with—nobody’s calling out anybody, but a lot of it has to do with Somalia and plenty of others,” Trump said.
Trump also suggested that public officials connected to the situation should be scrutinized if wrongdoing is discovered.
“If they are complicit you can hopefully find out about it,” Trump said.
Vice President JD Vance said the new task force is designed to address widespread fraud that has been allowed to grow because federal agencies were not effectively sharing information.
“One of the things that even before this executive order was signed that we were able to see was evidence that in Minneapolis there were primarily illegal immigrants who were defrauding a Medicaid program that was meant to go to autistic children,” Vance said.
According to Vance, fraudulent providers allegedly claimed children had autism in order to bill the Medicaid system.
“You had autistic kids in Minneapolis, they were literally stealing out of their pocket,” Vance said. “It’s got to stop.”
Vance said the executive order requires federal agencies to coordinate their anti-fraud efforts more closely, including sharing financial data and investigative findings across departments.
“We’re going to have the entire apparatus of the federal government do two things: stop the fraud against the American taxpayer and make sure the benefits that ought to go to American citizens go to American citizens and not fraudsters,” Vance said.
Trump argued that if even a portion of the fraud is uncovered and stopped, it could dramatically improve the nation’s financial outlook.
“If we found half of the fraud that’s taking place in this country, and I think you have a chance of doing that, we would have much more than a balanced budget,” Trump said.
Trump described the new task force as potentially one of the most significant actions taken by his administration.
“I think this could be one of the most important things that we sign,” Trump said.
