Vice President JD Vance announced the creation of a new assistant attorney general position to help investigate billions of dollars in fraud affecting the federal government, during a White House news briefing on Jan. 8.

The announcement follows recent revelations of widespread fraud in Minnesota, with more than 1,500 subpoenas filed and nearly 100 indictments secured, according to the vice president.

“Now, of course, that person’s efforts will start and focus primarily in Minnesota, but it is going to be a nationwide effort, because, unfortunately, the American people have been defrauded in a very nationwide way,” Vance said, singling out California and Ohio as states where investigations are underway.

“We’ve never seen fraud like this in the history of our country.”

The vice president said the assistant attorney general, under the Department of Justice, will answer to him and President Donald Trump.

Administration officials chose to create the new position rather than assign a special counsel for legal purposes, according to Vance.

“It has all the benefits, all the resources, all the authority of a special counsel, but with two crucial differences,” Vance said, citing White House control and constitutional legitimacy.

He said the Trump administration is working “to combat the rampant fraud that exists in [the U.S.] immigration system thanks to failed politicians and thanks to people who allowed the American taxpayer to be taken advantage of for far too long.”

American taxpayers have limited access to resources because of fraud, abuse, and a previous lack of oversight, according to the vice president.

“If you’re a young parent struggling to afford child care in the United States of America, there are programs that we have to make it easier for your kids to get in day care, for your kids to get in preschool, those programs should go to American citizens,” Vance said.

The Department of Agriculture is reviewing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for potential fraud “so that people who need benefits get them, but illegal aliens and other fraudsters don’t,” he said.

A nomination is expected in the coming days, according to the vice president, who said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has promised a quick confirmation process for the yet unnamed individual.

“This is the person who is going to make sure that we stop defrauding the American people,” Vance said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the Department of Homeland Security is assisting with “door-to-door investigations” of potentially fraudulent activities.

“Taxpayers have been ripped off to the tune of billions of dollars in this one state alone, and that is going to end, and people are going to be held accountable,” Leavitt said, emphasizing the deployment of thousands of federal agents, a doubling of U.S. attorneys working in the Minneapolis Department of Justice office, and “surged resources to hold officers accountable and demand justice for law-abiding American taxpayers and citizens across [the] country.”

Congressional hearings on Jan. 7 in the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform detailed billions of dollars in fraud in Minnesota.

Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, described the existing evidence as “just the tip of the iceberg, perhaps the largest Medicaid scam ever, taking place throughout the state in many different fashions.”