The Trump administration’s anti-fraud initiatives might appear scattered, but that’s largely due to the vastness of the challenge they face.
With federal expenditures exceeding $7 billion annually, fraudsters are relentless in their attempts to exploit every cent. Under the vigilant eye of Vice President JD Vance, the White House has rallied its resources for an extensive campaign to combat this menace.
In a significant victory this week, the Justice Department successfully apprehended a fugitive accused of committing a staggering $500 million Medicare fraud, evading capture since 2022. Concurrently, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare-Medicaid authority Dr. Mehmet Oz have taken decisive action by suspending over $1 billion in funding for California and Minnesota due to suspected Medicaid fraud.
Simultaneously, the Treasury, led by Scott Bessent, implemented new verification protocols, preventing $100 million in taxpayer funds from being misallocated to deceased individuals. Moreover, an IRS audit revealed a startling discovery: errors in Social Security records had incorrectly listed 10% of recipients.
These developments add to the recent spate of fraudulent activities, including adult-day-care scams in Queens and efforts to recover $1 billion from pandemic-related unemployment fraud, which continues to siphon off approximately $2 million daily in New York.
Last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced charges against 455 people for $6.5 billion in health-care fraud.
All this is robbery of the taxpayers and of the folks these government programs are supposed to help: That should outrage Republicans and Democrats alike.
And politicians of both parties should be embarrassed that the crackdowns are only coming now, years after fraudsters notoriously made off with tens or even hundreds of billions in COVID-relief monies.
Yes, some of the crackdown relies on new technology: Kennedy touted the use of AI, advanced analytics and “other cutting-edge tools” to ID suspicious Medicaid outlays.
But much of it is just what Alexander Hamilton called “energy in the executive,” meaning leadership from President Donald Trump and his top people.
For example, the FBI created a Most Wanted Fraudsters list, which has now nabbed three major suspects: Khalid Satary, the one captured this week, plus Herbert Kimble, who allegedly stole $1.2 billion in a Medicare telemedicine scheme, and Said Abdullahi Ereg, accused of fraud totaling $4.2 million in a child-nutrition program.
Yet Democrats want to ignore or deny it all: Govs. Tim Walz and Gavin Newsom complained about “health care cuts” as Kennedy and Oz lowered the boom on them, even though both have been rushing to crack down on fraud in their states after the feds started exposing it.
And don’t forget the Dem boycott of Sen. Rand Paul’s fraud hearing last week.
We expect pretty sleazy stuff has gone on in red states, too, with some of the profits flowing to Republican politicians.
But Democrats likely worry that the worst will have gone on in blue ones — because those states always focus on increasing government spending as if it doesn’t matter where the cash actually goes.
Whatever the reason, it’s a terrible look for a bunch that used to consider themselves the party of the people, not the fraudsters.