Vice President JD Vance’s “fraud squad” is off to a rough start with accusations of dummying up of prosecution numbers by DOJ officials in what is being called a “turf war.”
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the high-profile announcement by President Donald Trump that Vance would take the lead in rooting out government fraud has instead led to infighting at the DOJ, including over which division gets to use “fraud” in its title.
When the Justice Department’s new fraud chief gathered top prosecutors from across the South last month to announce “record fraud enforcement actions,” each official highlighted a recent case demonstrating the new effort’s progress, the Journal reported.
However, one of the cases presented was not new. The U.S. attorney for northern Mississippi highlighted a former federal employee convicted of plundering a pandemic-era loan program for distressed small businesses. The defendant was caught in 2022 and had already completed his prison sentence when his case was highlighted.
That was not a one-off.
According to the report, the division has “struggled to recruit prosecutors” and has been slowed by internal conflict over jurisdiction and resources. Some promising investigations have “stalled as a result of the disputes.” Colin McDonald, a 38-year-old former San Diego prosecutor, was placed in charge of the new division in April. To jumpstart operations, more than 70 prosecutors specializing in Medicare fraud and opioid cases were transferred to his command, sparking “a months-long feud with the older fraud unit” where those lawyers previously worked. The rift damaged longstanding investigations, as leaders of the former unit worried they would not receive credit for enforcement actions they had conducted. After reclaiming some prosecutors, the older unit’s leader told staff he had “won” the dispute. In recent rebranding, the old unit was forced to change its name so only McDonald’s division could use the word “fraud” in its title. “White House officials have recently been dissatisfied with the volume of criminal cases McDonald has produced, believing he spent too much time building the new division and that he should be producing more cases and arrests, people familiar with their thinking said,” the Journal reported.
“McDonald is trying to get more attention—and credit—for the Justice Department’s work. U.S. attorneys around the country have been told to highlight the creation of McDonald’s division on news releases announcing new fraud cases, according to a memo sent to prosecutors in May.”
A review of court records shows many early cases the fraud division touted in spring were charged long before the unit opened, with some filed before Trump took office in January 2025. Defendants in cases highlighted at press conferences “had been convicted well before the announcements took place.”
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