Democratic attorneys general on Vice President Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force meeting
(KYMA, NBC) - Democratic attorneys general across the country are holding a virtual press conference to talk about Vice President JD Vance's Anti-Fraud Task Force meeting.
During the meeting, which took place in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, Vice President Vance was joined by Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and attorneys general from multiple states.
While some of the meeting was held behind closed doors, the vice president discussed the task force's initiatives.
"So, one of the things we've realized in combating fraud is that the resources of the federal government, while vast, can be supplemented and aided by a lot of the people who know best what's happening in their states, which is the attorneys general represented here today. And they have a lot of legal resources, they have a lot of prosecutorial resources, and of course they have the desire to prevent fraud as much as we do, and so I appreciate these leaders for being here, because we're going to work together, state and federal government, to try to combat fraud. I'm particularly gratified here that this is not a partisan effort. I believe we have a couple of representatives from the attorney generals in Connecticut and Oregon, and as I've said repeatedly, this is not - need to be - this should not be a partisan effort. Everybody should care about fraud, everybody should care about rooting out fraud, everybody should care about saving the American taxpayers money, and importantly, everybody should care about actually protecting the programs that only work and are only properly funded if it's not, if the money funding those programs isn't being stolen by fraudsters."
Vice President JD Vance
The vice president also emphasized what the task force has accomplished during the meeting.
"We deferred more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements that were coming from various states, particularly California. We put a six-month hold on enrollments for new hospice and home health care providers, because so many of the newer hospice providers were not actually providing hospice services, but were just focused on fraud. So, we're going to cut that out for a little bit and try to get to a place where we can actually certify that the people providing hospice services are actually providing those very necessary and important services. We recovered taxpayer funds from the $135 billion stolen after the floodgates were open in the immediate aftermath of COVID. We have found $6.3 billion in suspected fraudulent government contracts, which were mostly awarded during the last administration, and that has stopped. And finally, we blocked $60 million in student aid fraud that should have gone to young people trying to get an education, but instead we're going to fraudsters. And I think the theme here of the anti-fraud task force up to this point has really been that we're protecting two classes of victims here, we're protecting the American taxpayers who shouldn't have their money stolen by fraudsters, and of course, we're protecting the people who need these services. Fraud is not a victimless crime. This is not somebody who gets to make some money for violating the law, and otherwise it's not a big deal. This is people who rely on critical services, students who rely on student loan services, sick people who reply, who rely on hospice care, a number of small businesses who rely on the availability of these loans so that they can grow their business and hire people. All of these people, all of our fellow Americans have been taken advantage by fraudsters, and the task force is here to stop it."
In response to the meeting, New York Attorney General Letitia James and other Democratic attorneys general, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, are holding a virtual press conference to discuss the meeting, which they said they received a last-minute invitation from the vice president to participate in the meeting.
To watch the livestream of the press conference, see attached video.
