DOJ congressional notice contradicts Vance on new anti-fraud division reporting directly to White House

The Trump Administration is moving forward with the creation of a new anti-fraud division that Vice President JD Vance said would be, “run out of the White House” in a break with longstanding nonpartisan norms at the Department of Justice (DOJ). 

But, according to a congressional notice obtained by Democracy Docket, it’s unclear whether the White House is now reversing plans to have the new assistant attorney general report directly to Vance and President Donald Trump. 

In a letter dated Jan. 16, Assistant Attorney General for Administration Jolene Ann Lauria tells Rep. Hal Rodgers (R-Ky.), the chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the DOJ, that the Department “proposes a reorganization to establish a new National Fraud Enforcement Division as a new Departmental component led by an Assistant Attorney General (AAG) appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate.”

The White House and the DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking clarity as to whether the notice reflects a change in plans for the administration or whether, despite situating the new position formally under the Deputy Attorney General, the new AAG will still, in practice, report to the White House. 

According to an organization chart enclosed with Lauria’s letter, the new division’s leader would report to the Deputy Attorney General, as do the other 11 assistant attorney generals, and would enforce “the Federal criminal and civil laws against fraud targeting Federal government programs, Federally funded benefits, businesses, nonprofits, and private citizens nationwide.”

At a press briefing held a day after an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed 37-year-old mother Renee Macklin Good in Minnesota, Vance said that the new AAG would focus their attention on allegations of welfare fraud among the state’s Somalian population while reporting directly to him and Trump. The plan was widely seen as the latest, brazen bombing of the nonpartisan norms that long isolated the DOJ from the White House. 

Vance claimed having a DOJ official report directly to him was “actually constitutionally legitimate,” despite the novelty of the arrangement.  

However, the letter states that the “AAG heading up this new Division will advise the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General on issues involving significant, high-impact fraud investigations and prosecutions and related policy matters.”

The letter notes that the DOJ is required by law to have 11 assistant attorney generals appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and that only one — National Security — has their portfolio set by statute.

Until now, fraud cases were divided between the DOJ’s Civil and Criminal divisions for litigation. Legal experts have panned the proposal as a duplicitous and partisan scheme that would ultimately undermine fraud prosecutions. 

The creation of a fraud unit comes Trump issued 88 pardons during his first year back in office for white-collar crimes including bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, including one woman he had already pardoned once prior for an unrelated fraud.