The Senate confirmed a longtime federal prosecutor to a new Justice Department role focused on prosecutions of fraud in government programs.
The Senate on Tuesday approved Colin McDonald's nomination 52-47 for assistant attorney general for fraud enforcement, despite concerns from Democrats about his recent work with the department and that his post could be weaponized to pursue political opponents of President Trump.
The vote comes just days after the White House announced details about its own anti-fraud task force that would include a representative of the Department of Justice and would also pursue fraud in government programs. Vice President JD Vance will serve as the group's chairman.
"Republicans and Democrats can and should agree: fighting fraud, particularly fraud on the American taxpayer, is important work, and that's true now more than ever," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said ahead of Tuesday's vote. "What happened in Minnesota and around the country is unacceptable, and we as elected officials need to support the Justice Department in stopping this fraud."
Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, was referring to a long-running prosecutions of fraud in Minnesota, including in its child care programs, which was also highlighted by MAGA-aligned social media influencers earlier this year.
Vance announced the creation of a DOJ fraud role in January, pointing to the fraud in Minnesota, and said that position would have a direct line to the White House.
"This is the person that is going to make sure we stop defrauding the American people," Vance said at the time.
Trump in his State of the Union speech later announced a "war on fraud" to root out corruption in places like Minnesota, and put Vance in charge of it.
McDonald, like other agency representatives, will presumably be a part of this "government-wide" effort," as the White House has described this Vance-led task force. The White House and the Department of Justice didn't respond to detailed questions about how the two efforts would work together.
The creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division that McDonald will run also contributes to concerns about the independence of federal law enforcement, according to some Democratic lawmakers and former Justice Department officials.
"The Justice Department has historically operated with meaningful independence from the White House in individual enforcement matters. When you have statements like we have here suggesting that any new fraud enforcement office would be answerable to the White House, that raises legitimate concerns," said Perry Carbone, a former federal prosecutor. He was pointing to Vance's comments about McDonald having a direct line to the White House.
Carbone, now an adjunct professor at Pace University, spent 30 years with the DOJ focusing on white collar, public corruption and tax cases. He said the DOJ already has longstanding, and fruitful, units that investigate fraud across a range of areas and coordinate nationwide cases, making this new creation redundant.
"Fraud enforcement requires credibility that decisions are based on evidence and law, and not political considerations," he said.
Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar asked McDonald about such concerns during his Senate confirmation hearing last month.
McDonald — who prior to confirmation served as an associate deputy attorney general in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — said his goal as a career federal prosecutor is to uncover and follow the facts and apply them to the law.
He said he wants "to make sure every case I bring is fair and is just."
When asked who he would report to, he simply said he would report to Blanche; he confirmed that in subsequent written responses to the committee.
Background as a federal prosecutor
McDonald's most recent work at the DOJ also prompted some questions from lawmakers.
McDonald worked as a federal prosecutor for about a decade in the Southern District of California in San Diego, his hometown.
He moved to Washington, D.C. with his wife and five children to work with Blanche.
That included supervising the DOJ's Weaponization Working Group, which Attorney General Bondi established "to restore integrity and credibility with the public" of the DOJ's work.
The working group was created after Trump railed against the Department of Justice's federal charges against him under the Biden administration and vowed to get vengeance during his campaign for a second term.
Since Trump's return to the White House, the DOJ has investigated and in some instances prosecuted Trump's perceived political foes like New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. (Both cases have since been dismissed.)
Blanche praised McDonald as a "rockstar," while Trump in a Truth Social post announcing his nomination said he was "very smart, tough and highly respected America First federal prosecutor who has successfully delivered justice in some of the most difficult and high-stakes cases our country has ever seen."
But Democratic lawmakers expressed concern about McDonald's association with the Weaponization Working Group during his nomination hearing, citing worries the prosecutor's work would be politicized.
In a written response to questions, McDonald said his job involves supervising various areas inside the DOJ, including the Working Group, but clarified that he wasn't the group's co-chair. During the hearing, he dodged specifics on his work with the group, and said it was important to understand "what happened" during the Biden administration.
Prompted by Minnesota fraud
The administration's creation of a national fraud enforcement division came after the Trump administration set its sights on alleged fraud in Minnesota.
There had already been years of investigations of fraud in Minnesota, including of a $300 million pandemic-era fraud scheme exploiting a federally funded program providing food to children. Federal prosecutors said there was also fraud tied to housing services and autism programs in the state. The U.S. Attorney's Office for Minnesota says most of the defendants in the fraud schemes are Somali-Americans.
Trump has accused Minnesota of becoming "a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity," where "refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State."
Shortly after announcing his "war on fraud," the administration said it would halt Medicaid funding going to Minnesota while it investigates whether officials there were "good stewards of the American people's tax money." Minnesota quickly sued to block the move.
That case is still ongoing, but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have indicated recently they may seek a pause to the lawsuit and are aiming to release the halted funds, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
NPR attempted to get more details from the White House and the DOJ about McDonald's role in investigating alleged fraud, how many people would make up the department or how this department would operate within the current DOJ framework. The White House and DOJ didn't respond to questions.
During his confirmation hearing, McDonald said the goal of the fraud enforcement division would be to go after abuses of federal taxpayer programs like Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and other programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Such federal safety net programs provide the bulk of federal funds that go directly to states for distribution.
The Government Accountability Office published a report last September that said recipients of SNAP benefits have reported more than $320 million in stolen benefits, though that was due in part to SNAP cards lacking meaningful theft-prevention features like microchips.
The GAO said the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, the federal agency responsible for these benefits, "has not comprehensively assessed what benefit theft prevention measures state SNAP agencies are implementing, including those it recommended in October 2022."
Vance said the focus won't just be on Minnesota.
"We also want to expand this. We know that the fraud isn't just happening in Minneapolis. It's also happening in states like Ohio. It's happening in states like California," he said in January, when announcing the new division.
Prior DOJ programs
But Jonathan Rusch, another former federal prosecutor, said such fraud has already been a major priority for the federal government for years.
The DOJ as well as HHS, including the HHS Inspector General's office, have worked together on a coordinated effort to identify and pursue all fraud tied to the health care system, he said.
Rusch, who left the DOJ in 2015, is a lawyer and director of the U.S. and International Anti-Corruption Law Program at the American University Washington College of Law.
"As significant and problematic as health care fraud is, for many years, the Justice Department has had very effective means of coordinating in long-standing ways with the FBI, HHS and other agencies to pursue all kinds of health care fraud," he said.
McDonald responded directly to speculation that this fraud division would be redundant during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The issue of fraud, waste and abuse in the country is so vast. The problem is massive," he said. "President Trump and the attorney general were right to identify this as a place where we needed to put significant more focus."
And yet, under the Trump administration, the DOJ has de-prioritized other anti-fraud efforts, including eliminating a division probing cryptocurrency scams. And federal investigations into alleged corporate wrongdoing are down, according to the nonprofit group Public Citizen which tracks the DOJ's federal investigations against corporations.
"If the Justice Department wanted to increase fraud prosecutions, then they should be taking action to strengthen enforcement and not weakening it," Carbone, the former prosecutor, said. "The way that should be done is through the existing structure, instead of cutting resources to the fraud section."
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