LOS ANGELES – The freshly appointed, MAGA-aligned U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles County, has launched an ambitious new federal criminal task force aimed at forensically investigating how billions in homeless funding over the past five years was spent.  

“We will get to the bottom of it. And if we find that any federal laws are violated, we will arrest and prosecute those individuals involved,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told Fox News in his first television interview at his office in Downtown Los Angeles.

Essayli announced the launch of the Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force, which will include federal prosecutors from the FBI, IRS and HUD. One of the items on the agenda is investigating the results of a recent audit that revealed $2.3 billion of homeless funding is unaccounted for in Los Angeles County alone.

This is exactly what President Trump wants done,” Essayli said about the task force. “He wants accountability for public officials, he wants accountability for taxpayers.”