Vice President JD Vance will convene the first meeting of a new White House anti-fraud task force Friday, an administration official told NBC News.
The project, which President Donald Trump announced last month in his State of the Union address, is aimed at reducing federal spending by identifying misuse of federal funds.
Vance will be joined at the meeting by Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, who will be the task force’s vice chair, and deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who will be a senior adviser, the official said. Other Cabinet secretaries and senior administration officials are expected to attend the meeting, which will be held on the White House grounds.
“The task force is an integral part of the Trump Administration’s effort to restore the vision of America as a high-trust society,” a Vance spokesperson said in a statement. “Its work is already full steam ahead in rooting out the rampant waste, fraud and abuse across the country and finding the fraudsters who are robbing hard-working Americans.”
Ferguson said in a statement shared with NBC News that he looks forward “to working with the Vice President to deliver results to the American people and hold wrongdoers accountable.”
Trump signed an executive order creating the task force this month. He, Vance and others have targeted Minnesota, with its Democratic governor and attorney general, while vowing to focus on other states as the task force’s work advances.
Minnesota is subject to an ongoing fraud probe involving day care centers and allegations of misuse of funds that has become a rallying cause for Republicans. After Trump’s State of the Union address last month, Vance and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz announced a pause on federal Medicaid reimbursements to Minnesota.
“I hope JD is going to do a great job,” Trump said Thursday at a Cabinet meeting. “He’s in charge of it now with somebody who’s very talented, but I think it’s easy. So they say $19 billion ... is missing — $19 billion. You know, we would solve half of the fraud problem in this country. We’d have more than a balanced budget; we’d have a surplus.”
A memo Vance and Ferguson sent to task force members this week outlined several areas that they aim to emphasize, including prosecutions. Vance was involved in creating an assistant U.S. attorney general position focused on fraud.
“First, the government must prosecute fraudsters and recover as much improperly obtained money as it can,” Vance and Ferguson wrote. “Second, therefore, alongside prosecutions, the government must also prevent fraud from happening before payments are made.”
The memo added that “top areas of concern are programs that pay out large sums of money with low confidence or limited information about the ultimate recipients and uses of those funds.” Among the specific programs cited: Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
