Meet The Assistant AG Leading Trump’s Crackdown On Fraud

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Meet The Assistant AG Leading Trump’s Crackdown On Fraud

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE – What started as a single video from an independent YouTuber has snowballed into a full-fledged administration effort to root out fraud — and leading the charge is Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald.

Trump appointed McDonald to the newly created post, and he was sworn in April 1. He reports to Vice President JD Vance, who also heads the White House’s new Anti-Fraud Task Force. Since then, “protecting taxpayer dollars” has become a rallying cry for the administration, with McDonald crisscrossing the country to roll out initiatives and partnerships aimed at the cause.

McDonald sat down with the Caller for a 30-minute interview to discuss his role overseeing the Justice Department’s push to stamp out fraud nationwide.

“Our goal at the end of the day is to eliminate the fraud, and the only way to do that is to go big. The problem is big, and so we’re building a big solution,” McDonald said of the administration’s work so far.

Most recently, he flew to Columbia, South Carolina, to announce a partnership among seven southeastern states. Under the memorandum of understanding they signed, the states will give the DOJ access to “publicly available corporate registration and public benefits payment data held by these state agencies.” The department believes the information will help it spot fraud patterns faster.

The aim is to unify the country against a problem that frequently crosses state lines, McDonald said. Closer to home, he also wants to bring the rest of the federal government together in the fight.

More than 70 offices of inspector general across the federal government are devoted to investigating fraud. But when McDonald took the job, he found that none of them were working together.

“If we have a certain type of fraud happening within U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development … if we don’t tell anybody about that, then the same thing might happen with Small Business Administration, and the same thing might happen with the Education Department,” he said. “Fraudsters thrive when nobody talks to each other.”

That team approach, across federal agencies and states, is something federal agents say they feel on the ground.

“If we don’t have the support or the partnerships, you can’t really go too far. You just kind of scratch the surface,” James Harris, an assistant director at Homeland Security Investigations, told the Caller. “But when you have the partnerships and do stuff like we did today, and you have the support, then we can go zero tolerance. Then we can unleash everything that we have.”

Four months in, the pairing of the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force and the DOJ’s fraud division has produced results. In May, the Department of Education identified $60 million in fraudulent student loan applications, the Caller first reported. On Thursday, in Columbia, McDonald announced that the DOJ had found $350 million in fraud across the seven southeastern states. And just days into his tenure, the task force identified nearly $6.3 billion in government contracts flowing to potentially fraudulent businesses.

McDonald described a strong working relationship with Vance, saying the vice president’s office has opened doors that make the DOJ’s investigations easier. The task force is also pushing to stop fraud before it happens, not just catch it after the fact. (RELATED: Vice President JD Vance Refers Tim Walz To DOJ For Criminal Fraud Investigation)

“They are doing the things necessary to send us referrals, make sure we have large enough teams of agents and analysts,” McDonald said. “They’re there to make sure the executive branch is doing everything we can to combat fraudsters.”

Moving forward, McDonald hopes to get every state working with the DOJ to combat fraud. Recently, he’s been in discussions with Hawaii about building back up their anti-fraud program and this week he is expected to go to Pennsylvania for an announcement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in in Philadelphia. More fraud events and initiatives are expected in the fall, McDonald told the Caller.

It is full throttle ahead for the next two years of the Trump administration, but after that, how can McDonald ensure that his work impacts future administrations? That, he says, is up to Congress.

“The interest from the legislative branch from Congress is also peak at the moment, and I think for very good reason we have very good relationships with folks on the Hill who are intent on pulling the legislative levers necessary to allow this division to really work,” McDonald told the Caller.

He added: “That’s another piece of this, which is the laws, the laws about fraud have to be tailored to make sure that they’re working for justice and not for the criminals.”