EXCLUSIVE: Inside The DOJ Roundtable That’s Quietly Uniting Seven States Against Fraud

COLUMBIA, S.C. — More than 50 officials from seven southeastern states convened Thursday to sign a data-sharing agreement with the Department of Justice aimed at rooting out fraud.

Across the seven states, officials have uncovered roughly $350 million in alleged fraud, according to information shared with the Daily Caller. Under the Memorandum of Understanding signed Thursday, the states will give the DOJ access to “publicly available corporate registration and public benefits payment data held by these state agencies.” It is data officials said will help the department spot fraud patterns faster.

Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, met with dozens of state officials before his press conference to discuss their work and how the federal government could better support it. The Daily Caller was the only outlet allowed in the room.

“To state partners here and across the country is this: the fraud division and our U.S. attorneys’ offices are ready to help you scale your efforts to strengthen your cases and deliver results for the taxpayers of America,” McDonald said at a press conference following the roundtable.

“Your partnership with us is the antidote to the fraud epidemic facing our nation. And my message to the fraudsters is this: Our team is getting bigger, our resolve is getting stronger, and your time is getting shorter,” he added.

SCOOP: The Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division has uncovered roughly $350 million in alleged fraud across the Southeastern U.S., resulting in charges across 7 states, @DailyCaller has learned.

The southeastern states have agreed to a data-sharing…

— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) July 30, 2026

Over the hour-and-a-half meeting, which ran past its scheduled end, officials walked through the progress they’d made uncovering fraud in their states. North Carolina asked for “department-wide access to advanced data analytics tools” to help farm data. They called on Congress to help combat fraud. Others described working across party lines, and some revealed how gangs are using fraud schemes to recruit teenagers.

Mississippi used the meeting to announce a new fraud task force, made possible by a grant program the DOJ unveiled. It is the first such federal grant awarded. The room traded notes on how other states could tap the same program.

“We’re going to be able to have five new prosecutors come in and work specifically on fraud. We’ll be able to hire a law enforcement officer specifically on this task force as well, and an analyst,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the Caller in an interview about the grant. “This gives us the opportunity to hire people that are dedicated.”

South Carolina and North Carolina brought news of their own. South Carolina officials announced they had uncovered the largest Medicaid fraud in state history, crediting an unlikely partnership for cracking the case: they worked alongside North Carolina, with an attorney general’s office led by a Democrat.

“Elected Republican, elected Democrat, state, federal, South Carolina, North Carolina — and if it hadn’t been for our ability to work together with their U.S. Attorney’s office … we would not have been able to uncover the largest Medicaid fraud in South Carolina history,” one state official said during the roundtable.

On the $350 million in fraud found across seven states, I ask Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald why this had previously gone unnoticed till now.

His response:
“We have leadership in place who have decided to make this a priority to give the tools to the agents that… pic.twitter.com/hqE8oPBeDd

— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) July 30, 2026

In an interview, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson credited his North Carolina counterpart, Jeff Jackson, with making fraud a priority of his administration. It was one reason the two states could work together. And Wilson said the DOJ has been instrumental in letting states across the country coordinate.

“When the administration makes it a priority at the federal level, it helps us support our priorities at the state level,” Wilson told the Caller. “Knowing that I have a liaison, a person I can call directly, it helps us make it a bigger priority here at the state. When we’re out operating by ourselves in the wilderness, we can only do so much.”

Wilson noted that when fraud crosses a state border, he loses jurisdiction. With an assistant attorney general dedicated to fraud, states can now call on the DOJ and its specialized fraud office to bridge that gap.

“[They] can break down those jurisdictional barriers, those geographic barriers, even the cultural barriers,” he said.

State officials aren’t the only ones happy to get more resources to fight fraud; federal officials expressed relief to the Caller as well. Fraud has been a long-time issue. The year prior, the FBI had 21 billion dollars reported to them in fraud, Heith Janke, the FBI assistant director, told the Caller. That is a 26% increase from the previous year.

“We’ve always had dedicated agents that investigated fraud, but not enough. We never had enough agent support. We never had enough prosecutor support to really tackle all this. I think the change is that this administration has said enough’s enough, fraudsters,” Janke told the Caller, adding that they have more agents, analysts and prosecutors under the Trump administration.

James Harris, Homeland Security of Investigations assistant director, told the Caller that the Trump administration’s focus on fraud has renewed hope among federal agents.

“If we don’t have the support or the partnerships, you can’t really go too far. You just kind of scratch the surface,” Harris told the Caller.

“But when you have the partnerships and do stuff like we did today, and you have the support, you know, then we can go zero tolerance. Then we can then unleash everything that we have,” he added.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The DOJ Fraud Division is hosting a roundtable with 8 U.S. Attorneys Offices, 7 State Attorneys General Offices, 5 federal law enforcement partners, and over 50 state officials to discuss how they can work together to root out fraud across the country. pic.twitter.com/0TCWCMpm61

— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) July 30, 2026

The administration’s focus on fraud came after YouTuber Nick Shirley exposed nearly a dozen Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota that were not actually providing services.

The Trump White House later launched a task force dedicated to rooting out fraud across the country. The effort has been led by Vice President JD Vance, who McDonald reports to in his newly created position.

“The fraud-fighting team assembled here today is resolved to work together to break those cycles and bring the fraudsters out into the light,” McDonald said Thursday.

“When federal prosecutors work with state agencies to share leads, data, strategy, the American people win. Better intelligence, better cases, better training, more money returned to victims, and more fraudsters behind bars where they belong,” he continued.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent.

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