Senate Democrats are urging the Trump Justice Department to explain the enforcement focus and other aspects of its new fraud division before they consider the White House’s nominee to run it.
Top Democrats on committees that oversee DOJ said in a letter obtained by Bloomberg Law to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday that the department hasn’t answered their requests from last month to hold briefings clarifying the fraud initiative. That’s left them with numerous outstanding questions, such as how the team will be staffed and deconflicted from existing fraud enforcement offices.
“Before the Senate Judiciary Committee can consider” President Donald Trump’s recent nominee to head the division, Colin McDonald, and “before the Senate Appropriations Committee can consider how this proposed Division will impact DOJ funding, we need additional details about the new Division’s structure and operations and enforcement priorities, among other issues,” said Sens.
The letter demonstrates continued confusion about the necessity and political motives of a project first rolled out by Vice President JD Vance as the Trump administration was seizing on Minnesota public benefits fraud.
Vance said the division was conceived and put together on a very short time frame. This forced upon leaders a determination that it would operate separately from DOJ’s criminal and civil fraud sections. The department then issued guidance contradicting Vance’s original statement that the new fraud chief would report directly to himself and President Donald Trump.
Among the questions the lawmakers asked Bondi to respond to by Feb. 27 are how many attorneys will be assigned to the division and from which other parts of the department they will be transferred. They also want to know whether the division will be required to comply with established DOJ policy requiring special approval before launching politically sensitive investigations.
McDonald, a former assistant US attorney in San Diego who became a Trump DOJ political appointee last year as an associate deputy attorney general, has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee to schedule a confirmation hearing. As the minority party, Durbin and other Democrats would be unable to prevent Chairman
The two Democrats also told Bondi they found the restructuring to create the fraud division “puzzling,” in light of the Trump administration’s earlier moves to dismantle a cryptocurrency enforcement team and gut its public integrity section.
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