Problem with Trump’s Fraud-Prosecutor Plan

The federal government is so big and dysfunctional that the bureaucracy it created to monitor itself, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, can only estimate the fraud committed against government programs within a range of about $300 billion — low-ball, it could be $233 billion, but it could be as much as $521 billion. The estimate released last year covers the time frame from 2018 through 2022 (i.e., much of the Covid pandemic), and the GAO can’t be more precise because, while detected and adjudicated fraud is determinable, the amount of “undetected potential fraud,” believed to be gigantic, can’t be reliably counted.

It seems like a no-brainer, then, that someone should be in charge of doing something about it. That is what President Trump purports to be doing by naming Colin McDonald, a well-regarded senior prosecutor in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, to be the new assistant attorney general for fraud.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

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The federal government is so big and dysfunctional that the bureaucracy it created to monitor itself, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, can only estimate the fraud committed against government programs within a range of about $300 billion — low-ball, it could be $233 billion, but it could be as much as $521 billion. The estimate released last year covers the time frame from 2018 through 2022 (i.e., much of the Covid pandemic), and the GAO can’t be more precise because, while detected and adjudicated fraud is determinable, the amount of “undetected potential fraud,” believed to be gigantic, can’t be reliably counted.

It seems like a no-brainer, then, that someone should be in charge of doing something about it. That is what President Trump purports to be doing by naming Colin McDonald, a well-regarded senior prosecutor in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, to be the new assistant attorney general for fraud.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.