A new Justice Department position to investigate fraud is running into early trouble in the Senate as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) questions the post’s independence from the White House.
President Donald Trump has yet to name someone as his assistant attorney general for fraud, a role Vice President JD Vance announced last week, but Tillis told the Washington Examiner he was concerned by White House plans to oversee the job directly, rather than allow the nominee to report to leadership at the Justice Department.
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“It was concerning to me to see an assistant U.S. attorney [general] reporting to the White House,” Tillis said, arguing that Trump risked politicizing what should be a law enforcement function and that future Democratic presidents might follow suit.
“The first thing I’ll do is go see if there’s a historic precedent for it. And if there isn’t, then why should we create this precedent?” Tillis said. “Because it makes me wonder what a President Mamdani would do with a general counsel.”
“So, even if I would be OK for the purposes of this administration, I have to make a decision based on the fact that it will create a precedent that will probably be used by all future administrations,” he added.
The position will need to be confirmed by the Senate, and Tillis, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, holds considerable sway over the fate of the nomination.
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He has already promised to oppose nominees for the Federal Reserve through his spot on the Banking Committee, expressing similar concerns about monetary independence after the DOJ decided to investigate Chairman Jerome Powell criminally.
The Justice Department has prosecuted dozens of people associated with a politically explosive fraud scheme that has implicated members of the Somali community in Minnesota, but Vance told reporters last Thursday that the new position would help spearhead a “nationwide” effort that would “be run out of the White House under the supervision of me and the president of the United States.”
On Wednesday, Trump teased that he had chosen someone for the assistant attorney general post and that an announcement would be coming soon.
“He’s fantastic. The person is fantastic,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “We have chosen a person who’s very tough, very smart, very fair.”
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said that “the President is determined to address the ongoing problem of widespread fraud, waste, and abuse. That’s why we need this new Assistant Attorney General focused on combatting and prosecuting fraud.”
“We look forward to working with the Senate to swiftly confirm a nominee for this position,” she added.