Team Trump’s anti-fraud drive is making more news than anyone can follow

If Team Trump’s anti-fraud efforts sometimes look a bit all-over-the-map, that’s because the map is so incredibly large.

The feds spend over $7 billion a year, and fraudsters look to cash in on every dime; with Vice President JD Vance on point, the White House has organized a full-court press to fight back.

One day this week, the Justice Department announced it had finally nabbed a fugitive Medicare fraudster on the lam since 2022, who allegedly stole more than half a billion dollars, even as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare-Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz froze over $1 billion in funding to California and Minnesota over apparent Medicaid fraud.

About the same time, Scott Bessent’s Treasury stopped $100 million in tax money going to dead people thanks to new verification procedures, while the IRS chief revealed that a recent scrub of the Social Security Number database found that one in 10 recipients were erroneously listed.

That follows recent news of blatant adult-day-care scams in Queens and a drive to claw back $1 billion in COVID-era unemployment fraud that may still be nabbing $2 million a day in New York.

Last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced charges against 455 people for $6.5 billion in health-care fraud.

All this is robbery of the taxpayers and of the folks these government programs are supposed to help: That should outrage Republicans and Democrats alike.

And politicians of both parties should be embarrassed that the crackdowns are only coming now, years after fraudsters notoriously made off with tens or even hundreds of billions in COVID-relief monies.

Yes, some of the crackdown relies on new technology: Kennedy touted the use of AI, advanced analytics and “other cutting-edge tools” to ID suspicious Medicaid outlays.

But much of it is just what Alexander Hamilton called “energy in the executive,” meaning leadership from President Donald Trump and his top people.

For example, the FBI created a Most Wanted Fraudsters list, which has now nabbed three major suspects: Khalid Satary, the one captured this week, plus Herbert Kimble, who allegedly stole $1.2 billion in a Medicare telemedicine scheme, and Said Abdullahi Ereg, accused of fraud totaling $4.2 million in a child-nutrition program.

Yet Democrats want to ignore or deny it all: Govs. Tim Walz and Gavin Newsom complained about “health care cuts” as Kennedy and Oz lowered the boom on them, even though both have been rushing to crack down on fraud in their states after the feds started exposing it.

And don’t forget the Dem boycott of Sen. Rand Paul’s fraud hearing last week.

We expect pretty sleazy stuff has gone on in red states, too, with some of the profits flowing to Republican politicians.

But Democrats likely worry that the worst will have gone on in blue ones — because those states always focus on increasing government spending as if it doesn’t matter where the cash actually goes. 

Whatever the reason, it’s a terrible look for a bunch that used to consider themselves the party of the people, not the fraudsters.