By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-16 13:46:11 | Updated at 2026-10-16 14:33:28
52 minutes ago
Vice President JD Vance announced a crackdown on fraud, calling on Americans to take a pledge to do what they can to stop scamming, swindling, and chicanery in the United States.
“Do you hate fraud?” Vance, who is chairman of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, asked his followers on X in an Oct. 15 post.
He also asked them to vow to do “everything in their power to protect their fellow citizens by performing six key duties.”
The sextet of promises includes ensuring vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, indigent, and disabled, are shielded from those who would prey on them, stopping taxpayer-funded programs from serving illegal aliens or con artists, and making sure federal and state benefits are not used by fraudsters to buy “mansions or luxury cars.”
Additionally, he called on public agencies and officials to work “tirelessly and aggressively” to prevent fraud before benefits are paid, for convicted swindlers to be imprisoned and “barred from ever receiving another penny of taxpayer dollars”, and for illegal alien fraudsters to be “promptly arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, and deported.”
A document outlining the pledge states that “each year, hardworking Americans pay trillions of dollars to fund a system of benefits programs for citizens in need.”
“Unfortunately, this generosity and willingness to help our fellow Americans has been abused and exploited by fraudsters, illegal aliens, and corrupt bureaucrats,” the document continued, adding that though previous administrations had “turned a blind eye” to the issue, President Donald Trump and Vance are “aggressively fighting fraudsters nationwide.”
Vance’s pledge has received backing from the White House, 22 Republican state governors, and several key federal officials and Republican members of the House of Representatives.
The vice president’s anti-fraud pledge came a day after the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the first nationwide “tax fraud surge,” which led to prosecutorial actions against 76 defendants in 45 days, whose alleged crimes totaled an intended loss of more than $490 million.
The enforcement action involved 35 U.S. attorneys’ offices, the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, and IRS Criminal Investigation, according to a DOJ statement.
The DOJ said new charges against 31 defendants involved more than $350 million in estimated intended losses to the federal government, while trials, guilty pleas, and sentencings involving 45 other defendants accounted for nearly $140 million in estimated intended losses.
The same day, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also unveiled new measures to combat healthcare fraud, revealing that officials recently found 189,000 people were improperly enrolled in subsidized Affordable Care Act coverage despite also being enrolled in a government insurance program or being deceased.
Officials with the HHS and its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) division reviewed data and identified duplicative enrollments, as well as instances of deceased individuals being insured, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials said during a briefing in Washington on Oct. 14.
Insurance companies, brokers, and agents profit from the double-enrollments, not the people themselves, officials said. In many instances, individuals do not know they are double-enrolled.
This year, 58,000 people who already have Medicare were removed from Obamacare, CMS deputy administrator Peter Nelson said during a press conference in Washington. Another 11,000 subsidized plans were ended for dead people.
Nelson projected the removal of an additional 3,500 deceased individuals by the end of October.
The removals will prevent an estimated $738 million in improper subsidy payments this year, and $1.5 billion each year moving forward.
The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud was established by a presidential executive order on Mar. 16 to coordinate and accelerate a comprehensive national strategy to stop fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal benefit programs.
Zachary Stieber and Tom Gantert contributed to this report.
