“Border Czar” was among Vice President Kamala Harris’ greatest liabilities; “Fraud Czar” could be VP JD Vance’s biggest asset.
If Vance and Republicans are smart, they will ensure that it is.
On March 16, President Trump created the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. He made the vice president its chairman and explicitly included representatives from ten Cabinet agencies, OMB, and “other agencies, inspectors general, or components within the Executive Office of the President, as determined by the Chairman.”
Making Vance the fraud czar is no “dead ending” of an issue Republicans want to ignore. It should be just the opposite. Defrauding the federal government is big business. It is an even bigger political issue.
How big a business is defrauding the federal government? According to GAO: “In FY 2025, 15 federal agencies reported a total estimate of about $186 billion in improper payments across 64 programs, an increase of $24 billion from the prior fiscal year. Most of these improper payments were a result of overpayments.” Nor do these numbers represent the full extent of the fraud perpetrated: “The $186 billion does not include certain programs that agencies have determined are susceptible to significant improper payments, such as the Department of Health and Human Services’ Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.”
And while GAO acknowledges that it has not captured all the federal fraud out there, it found 19 programs had improper payment rates of at least 10%, and six had rates exceeding 25%.
When the actual fraud cases are revealed, the details are even more alarming. In Minnesota’s vast fraud network alone, an estimated $9 billion was stolen – $250 million by one nonprofit (Feeding Our Future), and some of the money funneled abroad and possibly to a terrorist group. Further, whistleblowers testified before a House committee “that Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs, lied about their knowledge of the fraud, and retaliated against state employees who bravely raised concerns.”
And more swindling is being uncovered all the time. Already, California, Illinois, New York, Colorado, Maine, and Ohio appear to have versions of Minnesota’s scandal. Undoubtedly, more will be uncovered if investigations continue. VP Vance should ensure that they do.
Republicans should run against corruption because Democrats have given them the issue. Literally, in the case of Minnesota’s Lt. Governor Karen Flanigan: Her first reaction to the state’s burgeoning scandal was not to rush and announce cooperation with investigations; instead, she donned a hijab in support of the Somali community, some of whose members were at the scandal’s epicenter.
Democrats have also given Republicans the issue figuratively. Federal fraud is about big government running uncontrollably amuck. It is about wasteful spending. It is about crime not being prosecuted at the local level. If the allegations of turning a blind eye to favored groups are true, it implicates the DEI mindset.
It goes directly at Democrats’ perceived weaknesses: over-spending, over-taxing, favoritism, big government, coddling criminals, and condoning criminality for favored groups. These types of failures fan out into other Democrat policies: identity politics, Defund the Police, Abolish ICE, etc.
It also builds on longstanding Republican themes: reducing spending, opposing tax hikes, cutting the deficit and debt, enforcing the law, and eliminating unnecessary programs. Republicans can advance them all under the rubric of fighting fraud.
Entire government programs have been dedicated to DEI and dollars going to groups that promote it. How much of this spending has been spent fraudulently? Which of these programs would wilt under scrutiny for fraud?
Fighting fraud gives Republicans a resonant message of getting government’s house in order. It also parries the inevitable Democrat push to run for the White House on implementing expensive new programs (Obama did in 2008 on what became the Affordable Care Act and is itself larded with fraudulently enrolled participants).
It also allows Republicans to blunt coming Democrat attacks of Trump and DOGE’s government cuts, and the inevitable attempts to paint Republicans as heartless and hurting the poor. Wasteful spending is money not going to the poor and programs should be scoured for wasteful spending being diverted from them.
Americans hate to feel cheated, that they have been taken. Growing revelations of federal fraud and government officials’ possible complicity in that fraud show they have been taken on a massive scale over a prolonged period: nearly $3 trillion in known errors since 2003 alone. Furthermore, top Democrats’ fingerprints are on the fraud: According to a June 8 report by the House Committee on Oversight on Minnesota’s scandal, “fraud warnings were elevated to the most senior levels of the Minnesota state government, meaningful corrective action was delayed or avoided, and payments continued long after credible signs of fraud emerged.”
Likely there has been more, both within examined programs and unexamined ones. The administration should spend the next two years building its case, and VP Vance should spend the next two years ensuring it does. The liability that being “Border Czar” was for Kamala Harris is the asset that being “Fraud Czar” could be for Vance.
