WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Colin McDonald on Tuesday to lead the Department of Justice’s efforts cracking down on fraud as an assistant attorney general.
Fifty-two Republicans and 47 Democrats voted in favor of the nominee, who had been serving as an associate deputy attorney general at the DOJ.
The “fearless” federal prosecutor will now work closely with DOJ colleagues and Vice President JD Vance, who chair’s President Trump’s fraud task force — after serving for more than a decade as an assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of California.
“Colin McDonald is a great choice and will be a key asset in the War on Fraud,” Vance told The Post.
“The Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will help coordinate the interagency effort to root out and identify fraudsters, and separately, Colin will have nationwide jurisdiction at the Justice Department to prosecute the bad guys,” the vice president noted.
“This an important step by Congress to help the Administration protect taxpayers and vulnerable Americans from criminal fraudsters.”
Vance announced his role as chair of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud at a White House press briefing earlier this month following sprawling federal probes into Minnesota and California for allegedly bilking taxpayers into funding scam social service programs such as child care centers.
A former Minnesota federal prosecutor has estimated that fraud in the Land of 10,000 Lakes alone could top $9 billion — and Vance and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, yanked $259.5 million in Medicaid funds for Minnesota over fraud concerns this year.
“In states across the country, fraudsters are depriving vulnerable citizens of basic social services, stealing billions of your tax dollars, and eroding America’s social fabric,” a Vance spokesperson said in a statement.
“This fraud has happened on such a massive scale that it’s endangering the future viability of America’s entire social safety net,” the rep added. “The Trump Administration is responding with a whole-of-government War on Fraud that includes multiple stakeholders who will follow the fraud wherever it leads.”
Vance has previously suggested that fraudulent expenses shouldered by taxpayers could be as high as $19 billion in Minnesota.
The interagency task force will be co-chaired by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller will also serve as a senior adviser.
McDonald, a California native, made a name for himself by also assisting in the prosecution of former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, who was convicted in 2020 as part of a complex — and personal — scandal alleging that one of his uncles stole a mailbox to conceal theft of a six-figure sum from another relative.
Kealoha and his then-prosecutor wife Katherine Kealoha in Hawaii’s capital were found guilty of false arrest and obstruction of justice for abusing their positions to arrest their own uncle with the assistance of two cops.
The phony premise for the collaring of their kin was conducted to hide their own pilfering of $148,000 from an elderly relative that used to splurge on Elton John tickets, a Disneyland trip, Mercedes and Maserati sports cars and a whopping $23,976 brunch tab, prosecutors said.
“This was a flagrant and stunning abuse of power that victimized an entire community by undermining public confidence in its leaders and the rule of law,” said US Attorney Robert Brewer at the time, commending McDonald’s work on the years-long investigation that led to the conviction.
White House officials also noted how McDonald received praise from a Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals judge for his “impressive” degree of candor and “honesty with the court.”
Before his career in the DOJ, McDonald, a married father of five, clerked for US District Court Judge Michael M. Anello from 2012 to 2014.
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