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House votes 352-72 to lock in the DOJ fraud division. All 72 no votes were Democrats.

House Votes 352-72 to Make Trump’s DOJ Fraud Division Permanent Law; Every ‘No’ Was a Democrat

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 17, 2026 · 4 min read
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The House voted 352-72 on September 16 to write the Justice Department’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division into permanent federal law. The bill, H.R. 9576, the National Fraud Enforcement Division Act of 2026, would turn a division created by the Trump administration into a stand-alone, statutory arm of the Justice Department that a future administration could not quietly dissolve.

Every Republican who voted said yes. All 72 no votes came from Democrats.

What the bill does

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Brad Finstad, a Minnesota Republican, with four cosponsors, would codify the creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division as a stand-alone division within the Justice Department, headed by its own assistant attorney general and dedicated to investigating and prosecuting fraud against taxpayer dollars and taxpayer-funded programs.

The White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy the day of the vote saying it “strongly supports” the bill. The statement compared the new division to the Justice Department’s National Security Division, created early in the war on terror to coordinate federal prosecutions in a newly urgent area. It said the administration has uncovered “an astounding nearly $250 billion in fraud,” and that the bill “would ensure that future administrations will not roll back this important step toward ensuring that fraud against the American people is effectively investigated and prosecuted.” The president’s senior advisers, it said, would recommend he sign it.

That is the heart of the matter. Divisions created by executive action can be undone the same way. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Republican, put it plainly: the bill takes “something that is right now just an executive order and make it law to help the people.”

A division already at work

The White House announced the division in January, and the Justice Department stood it up in the spring. Colin M. McDonald, who has held Justice Department posts since 2014, including associate deputy attorney general and federal prosecutor in the Southern District of California, was sworn in on April 1 as its first assistant attorney general.

It has not been idle. In June the Justice Department announced its 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown: 455 defendants charged, including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals, in schemes involving more than $6.5 billion in alleged false claims. The cases spanned 56 federal districts and 45 states and territories. Authorities seized more than $182 million in cash, vehicles, jewelry and other assets, and 295 defendants were charged in Medicaid fraud schemes involving more than $518 million in false claims.

“We are aggressively scaling our offensive against anyone using health care as a front to steal from the American people,” McDonald said at the time. “Our message is simple: if you put profit over patients, you should expect to be put in prison.”

The Minnesota backdrop

The bill’s sponsor represents Minnesota, a state that has become the national symbol of benefits fraud, with the administration calling the situation there a “fraud epidemic.” Earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance referred Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to the new division for a potential criminal investigation, according to Fox News. Both men have acknowledged that taxpayer dollars were misused but accuse Republicans of exaggerating the problem for political purposes.

Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming summed up the Republican view: “What has come out of Minnesota over the last year, what has been exposed, is absolutely criminal in nature.”

The vote

According to the House Clerk’s official roll call, the tally broke down this way:

  • Republicans: 212 yes, 0 no, 6 not voting.
  • Democrats: 139 yes, 72 no, 3 not voting.
  • Independent: 1 yes.

A clear majority of Democrats, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, voted for the bill. Some of that support was grudging. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he would give the bill “tepid support,” pointing out that a Justice Department fraud unit has existed for decades and calling the measure “hardly some kind of great breakthrough in law enforcement or criminal justice.” According to Fox News, he spent much of the debate accusing Trump and his allies of corruption at the expense of prosecuting actual fraud cases.

Raskin is right about one thing: going after fraud is not new. What is new is a division with fraud as its only job, an assistant attorney general accountable for it, and a law that keeps it in place no matter who wins the next election. Seventy-two Democrats looked at that and voted no.

The bill now goes to the Senate, which must pass it before the president can sign it.

Stopping people from stealing taxpayer money should be the easiest vote in Congress, and 72 House Democrats still couldn’t bring themselves to cast it.

Sources

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