Vice President JD Vance wants every official in America on the record about fraud. This week he unveiled the “Pledge to Protect Americans from Fraud,” and by Friday the White House had published a list of more than 100 signers, from Cabinet secretaries to governors, state attorneys general, U.S. attorneys and members of Congress.
Twenty-two Republican governors, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, have signed, according to Texas Scorecard.
Vance, whom President Trump named the administration’s “fraud czar” earlier this year, leads the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. In a video announcing the pledge on Thursday, he called on “every member of Congress, as well as local and statewide officials” to act, and urged them “to rise to the occasion,” Just the News reported.
The six promises
The pledge contains six commitments, according to Texas Scorecard and Just the News. In plain terms, signers promise to:
- Protect the elderly and other vulnerable Americans from fraudsters.
- Make sure taxpayer-funded programs serve law-abiding Americans, not illegal aliens or fraudsters.
- Stop fraudulent benefits from paying for luxury cars and mansions.
- Stop improper payments before they go out, through better coordination between agencies.
- Send convicted fraudsters to prison and permanently bar them from taxpayer funds.
- Prosecute, imprison and deport illegal aliens convicted of fraud.
The fourth promise is the practical heart of it: catch bad payments before the money leaves the government, instead of trying to recover it after it is gone.
Who signed
The White House list reads like a roll call of the administration and the conservative states. Signers include Attorney General Todd Blanche, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, OMB Director Russ Vought and FBI Director Kash Patel, along with many deputies and inspectors general.
Governors named on the list include Mike DeWine of Ohio, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Bill Lee of Tennessee, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Greg Gianforte of Montana and Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia. The Republican Governors Association signed too.
State attorneys general on the list include Ken Paxton of Texas, James Uthmeier of Florida, Kris Kobach of Kansas, Todd Rokita of Indiana and Steve Marshall of Alabama. The State Financial Officers Foundation said 22 state financial officers had signed. In Congress, Sens. Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst, Marsha Blackburn, Katie Britt, Eric Schmitt and others joined, along with House leaders Steve Scalise and Tom Emmer.
What they say they’ve found
The White House release included figures from signers on fraud uncovered or stopped in their own areas. These are the officials’ own numbers:
- The Labor Department: $22 billion in labor fraud uncovered.
- The Education Department: more than $2 billion in student aid fraud prevented.
- FEMA: $1.3 billion in taxpayer funds protected last year.
- The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C.: well over $1 billion clawed back.
- The Texas attorney general’s office: more than $1 billion recovered for Texas.
- Indiana’s attorney general: more than $100 million in Medicaid provider fraud recovered since 2021.
“We will not tolerate anyone who steals from hardworking, law-abiding Americans,” Blanche said. “Every dollar stolen through fraud takes resources away from Americans in need,” Kennedy said.
Mullin was blunter: “Taxpayer-funded programs must ONLY serve law-abiding Americans, NOT illegal aliens or fraudsters.”
The states speak up
Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball called the pledge “the kind of committed leadership we need from the federal government” and said she would “strongly encourage all elected leaders to sign it,” according to Just the News.
In Texas, Abbott’s spokesman Andrew Mahaleris told Texas Scorecard that “fraud has no place in Texas.” He said a review Abbott ordered in January of the state’s child care program found that Texas’s anti-fraud measures “have kept improper payments extraordinarily low.”
Every governor named on the White House list is a Republican. The release does not say whether any Democratic officials were asked to sign or declined.
The bottom line
Nobody in public life says they are for fraud. But saying you oppose it costs nothing. Signing a written pledge to stop payments before they go out, keep illegal aliens off benefit rolls and put fraudsters in prison is a commitment voters can hold you to.
That is the point of Vance’s pledge. Benefits fraud is not a victimless paperwork error. Every stolen dollar is taken from a taxpayer who earned it or from a needy family the program was built to help.
More than 100 officials have now put their names down. Voters in every state can fairly ask the officials who haven’t: why not?