May 26 (UPI) — Vice President JD Vance hosted a meeting Tuesday afternoon with state attorneys general as part of his task force on fraud.
The event was largely attended by only Republican officials, however, because the task force invited attorneys general from the Democratic party with less notice than their Republican peers, Politico reported.
The Democratic attorneys general were invited to the meeting Friday, with a deadline to respond by Saturday. Republicans were invited about a week earlier. The 24 Democrats affected by this wrote Vance a letter declining the invite, CNBC reported.
“While we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day’s notice with no agenda,” the letter said. “This short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners. Accordingly, we respectfully decline to attend at this time.”
When President Donald Trump announced Vance’s role as “fraud czar” in April, he said the investigations would center on Democrat-run states.
Vance on Tuesday said that in two months, the task force has “exposed billions of dollars in benefits that had been stolen from the American people.”
“We referred over $22 billion in fraudulent small business loans back to the Treasury for collection,” he said. “We deferred more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements that were coming from various states, particularly California. We put a six-month hold on enrollments for new hospice and home health care providers, because so many of the newer hospice providers were not actually providing hospice services but were just focused on fraud.”
About 15 Republican attorneys general attended, as did Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and White House adviser Stephen Miller.
In a press release, the White House said Trump and Vance are “unleashing an unrelenting, full-scale assault on the fraudsters, scammers and corrupt operators who have looted billions from American taxpayers.” The release included a list of alleged fraud cases and actions, including many instances focused on Minnesota and California. No Republican-led states were cited.
