President Trump named himself “arbitrator” of a new program offering $30,000 bounties for tips leading to fraud charges — with Trump saying whistleblowers could get an additional 1% commission for recovered funds.
Trump announced the Justice Department initiative at a Tuesday afternoon event in the Oval Office with Vice President JD Vance, his fraud czar.
The White House said ahead of the announcement that the program would include a $25 million pot dispensing as much as $30,000 for federal fraud charges, though Trump sweetened the pot with the additional 1% offer if stolen money is recouped.
“You could have stolen $2 trillion, or whatever the ultimate number is going to be, and at 1% people will make millions and millions of dollars for turning in what actually is a somewhat routine crime,” Trump said.
“$100 billion, you get a 1% commission, and I think that will be amazing.”
In attendance was 24-year-old investigative vlogger Nick Shirley, whom Trump praised for highlighting fraud among Somali-American-run childcare centers in Minnesota, including the infamous “Quality Learing [sic] Center.”
Shirley, standing behind the Resolute Desk, said “I couldn’t believe it when I saw that” sign misspelling the word learning.
Shirley was supposed to receive a $10,000 check at the announcement, but the award wasn’t given publicly.
Trump told the fresh-faced activist, “It’s too bad that you had to ruin your youth to find that such bad people exist.”
The president said he would take on a personal role dispensing funds because “sometimes there’s a dispute as to who turned them in and who didn’t turn them in.”
“So I am going to do something which I think people will like. I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions,” he said.
“In other words, I’ll determine whether or not the person is deserving … and I will be very generous.”
Trump invited reporters to enter their articles for financial rewards, saying, “you know a lot of things that are happening,” calling journalism “not a very profitable thing to do — but it’s a very important thing to do.”
The $30,000 bounty specifically is funded through the new DOJ Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program (WHIP). Tips must be submitted on fraud.gov.
The Justice Department said in a release that “most existing Government whistleblower rewards programs issue awards only after the final resolution of a criminal matter, including the forfeiture and appeals process,” but the WHIP program will convey cash “following the filing of criminal charges.”
The federal government already offers rewards for reporting certain types of fraud.
A longstanding IRS initiative grants between 15% and 30% of recovered funds to incentivize reporting of tax fraud. The False Claims Act also allows bounties of 15% to 30% for fraud tips impacting government resources.
Vance said in the Oval Office that “over 99% of the fraud that we’re finding in the federal government isn’t covered by the False Claims Act.”
The VP also said that for the 1% commission, “our plan is not to limit this just to criminal prosecutions… if you find the money and you help us recover it, then you benefit from the program.”
Vance has focused heavily on theft of federal benefits as chair of a federal anti-fraud task force. He announced last month that 750,000 enrollees would be booted from Obamacare for suspected fraudulent enrollment, with another 450,000 put under review.
Vance previously withheld reimbursements for the low-income Medicaid program from states for certain programs deemed at high risk of fraud, imposed a moratorium on durable medical equipment providers for the old-age Medicare program and suspended 447 purported hospice providers in California.
The administration-wide push in August included the closure of 270 commercial driver’s licensing (CDL) schools for allegedly graduating illegal immigrant truck drivers who can’t speak English and offering subpar training facilities.
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