WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� Vice President on Friday held the inaugural meeting of a new anti-fraud task force he鈥檚 leading as the Trump administration seeks to show it鈥檚 cracking down on potential misuse of social programs.
Vance, speaking Friday before the task force held a closed-door meeting, said that the federal government, for decades, had not taken the issue of fraud seriously and that it needed to be tackled with 鈥渁 whole-government approach.鈥�
鈥淭his is not just the theft of the American people鈥檚 money,鈥� Vance said. 鈥淚t is also the theft of critical services that the American people rely on.鈥�
President Donald Trump, a Republican, has made a central part of his domestic agenda as voters have expressed concern about affordability ahead of . That effort comes after involving day care centers run by Somali residents in Minneapolis prompted a massive immigration crackdown in the Midwestern city, resulting in widespread protests.
Vance cited some of the Minnesota allegations on Friday. Last month, he held a news conference to announce until the state took actions that federal officials said would address their concerns.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who faced Vance as a vice presidential candidate in 2024, has called it a 鈥渃ampaign of retribution鈥� and said the Trump administration was 鈥渨eaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota.鈥�
The task force is also the most visible assignment to date that Trump has given to Vance, who is seen as .
Vance and the task force, which includes about half the president鈥檚 Cabinet, the leader of a new Justice Department division focused on prosecuting fraud and Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, are set to meet regularly to look at rooting out potential fraud and waste in federal benefit programs.
Ferguson, who is vice chair of the task force, cast the issue of fraud as a dire crisis facing the country and said it 鈥渟hreds the social trust on which these programs and our entire nation depend.鈥�
鈥淭his fraud crisis is thus existential,” he said. 鈥淚f we fail to address it, the fabric of our nation will swiftly unravel.鈥�
Joining the task force was Colin McDonald, a top aide to the Justice Department鈥檚 second in command. He was as the assistant attorney general overseeing the department鈥檚 new division focused on prosecuting fraud.
The Justice Department has long prosecuted fraud nationally through its Criminal Division, but the Trump administration says the new division is needed to crack down on rampant fraud.
The Justice Department under the Biden administration brought a pandemic fraud case involving the nonprofit , accusing dozens of defendants, most of Somali descent, of exploiting a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.
The investigations into the fraud there expanded, with a lead prosecutor estimating that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 .
That prosecutor who had been leading the sprawling fraud investigation there under the Biden and Trump administrations was among those who resigned from the Justice Department amid frustration with the department鈥檚 response to the fatal shootings of civilians by federal agents in Minneapolis.
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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
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