Washington — Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the Trump administration is creating a new assistant attorney general position focused on investigating fraud following allegations that taxpayers were bilked out of billions of dollars in Minnesota.

Vance said the new assistant attorney general will help coordinate an administration-wide effort to investigate potential fraudulent activity in federally-backed programs and bring charges. The assistant attorney general will not work out of the Justice Department, the vice president said. Instead, the position will be run out of the White House and overseen by President Trump and Vance, he said.

"This is the person who is going to make sure we stop defrauding the American people," Vance told reporters at the White House press briefing.

The assistant attorney general will be Senate-confirmed, and Vance said a nominee will likely be announced in the coming days. He said Senate Majority Leader John Thune pledged "swift confirmation."

The assistant attorney general leading the investigations will likely remain in place until the end of the Trump administration, according to Vance. He said the official will have "nationwide jurisdiction over the issue of fraud," but efforts will begin and be focused primarily on Minnesota.

Minnesota and its leaders have come under nationwide scrutiny over a growing fraud scandal in the state, which prosecutors estimate could top $9 billion. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has disputed that total.

More than 90 people have faced federal charges as a result of fraud schemes in the state that have been uncovered since 2021. Prosecutors have uncovered widespread fraud in various social-services programs, including a housing program for seniors, one that provides services to children with autism and the Federal Child Nutrition Program.

Mr. Trump has attacked Minnesota leaders for their handling of the scandal and accused other states led by Democrats of allowing fraud in their own state-run initiatives. The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it planned to halt more than $10 billion in federal funding for social services programs in Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado. The Department of Health and Human Services has already frozen federal child care funding for Minnesota.

"The best way to help poor families is to end the fraud so that the money that is available for them. And that's what we're doing," Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes on Wednesday.