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JD Vance drops huge Gavin Newsom fraud bombshell

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by Frank Holmes, reporter

Without a huge change in the polls, Republicans are staring down a rough midterm election this November—but President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance may have already come up with a brilliant plan to topple their greatest political enemy, save taxpayers billions of dollars, and elect Vance president of the United States in 2028.

Their strategy will take down the man most likely to win the Democratic presidential nomination in two years, California Governor Gavin Newsom…and Vance didn’t waste a second in springing the trap.

It all began earlier this month, when President Trump named Vance to lead the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which he created via executive order on March 16. Vance held the first meeting last Friday, March 27—and he already fired a massive shot across the bow of Gavin Newsom’s presidential campaign.

The Trump administration flagged and suspended 70 hospice providers in or around Los Angeles as likely perpetrators of fraud, based on an analysis from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, led by Dr. Mehmet “Doc” Oz.

And as Al Pacino said in Scent of a Woman, they’re “just getting warmed up!”

“As the task force to root out waste, fraud and abuse ramps up its work, we expect [the number of potentially fraudulent hospice and home health providers] to grow exponentially,” a well-informed source told Fox News.

The punishments will become more intense, too.

Since the federal government “simply does not have the resources necessary to recover all of the money lost to fraud once it has been paid out,” Vance and task force chairman Andrew Ferguson wrote in a memo, they plan to stop the fraudulent funds from flowing—and prosecute the people with their hands in our pockets.

The Trump administration already announced that blue states, including “California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado,” had “insufficient safeguards and weak oversight,” which “increase the risk of large-scale fraud.”

That could mean Vance will end up prosecuting Democratic governors like Newsom, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, and Kathy Hochul of New York.

Sitting in the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, it must look like the entire administration is gunning for Gavin. The House Oversight Committee announced on March 23 that it believes an estimated $3.5 billion of fraud takes place in Los Angeles County—in the hospice industry alone. And, in a letter to Newsom. Congressional Republicans made no bones about who deserves the blame.

“Americans across the country are paying for California’s rampant hospice fraud and vulnerable patients are being exploited,” committee members wrote to Newsom.

“Your administration has been aware of credible reports of hospice fraud for at least four years,” they added.

They referred to a damning March 29, 2022, report from the California State Auditor, which warned Newsom of “numerous indicators of fraud and abuse connected to hospice agencies located in Los Angeles County,” including “rapid, disproportionate growth in the number of hospice agencies; excessive geographic clustering of hospice agencies; long durations of hospice services; high rates of patients discharged alive; and employees working for a large number of hospice agencies.” For example, California Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo, R-Tulare, found more than 300 hospices operating out of a handful of addresses—197 from one address alone. Another 81 were registered to a nearby address.

These allegations came roaring back to life when reporter Nick Shirley, who exposed taxpayer fraud among Somali-run Minneapolis “daycares,” took his camera on a tour of California hospice locations.

It looked like the same old story: empty offices, phony bills, and a massive conspiracy to rob the American taxpayer.

Other journalists followed. California hospices charge more than twice as much as the national average, according to a CBS News investigation. Nationwide, most hospices charge Medicare $13,200 for their services to a dying patient, while California’s hospices charge $29,000 apiece.

“Despite these red flags, it appears California has enabled hospice providers to defraud the American taxpayer and exploit vulnerable patients,” House Oversight Committee members told Newsom.

The governor has until April 6 to turn over all records about the unfolding story. So far, Newsom’s office has recycled a statement from January, claiming, “The Newsom administration has taken decisive, multi-pronged action to protect Medi-Cal members and taxpayer dollars from fraudulent hospice activity.”

That doesn’t work now, and it definitely won’t hold water if Newsom wants to become president (and he does).

In 2028, Newsom will face attacks from the president, vice president, Congress, members of his own state Assembly, and possibly two dozen other Democrats seeking the presidential nod. Meanwhile, the Republican nominee—whom polls show will likely be J.D. Vance—will have the president and a united GOP behind him.

The fact that President Trump even appointed Vance to this commission proves he wants Vance to succeed. A supportive president tasks his second-in-command with taking the right side of a popular issue, as the president did with Vance. When a president wants to tear down his vice president, he puts him (or her) in charge of an impossible problem, like when Joe Biden tapped Kamala Harris as his border czar.

And there is no likely Democratic candidate President Trump hates more than the governor of California, whom he nicknamed “Gavin Newscum.”

Besides, this tactic has already claimed the political scalp of the last man who had the gall to run against J.D. Vance. Another fraud investigation ended the political career of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Walz whiffed in his debate against Vance, looking confused and untrustworthy, but somehow, he remained popular enough in Minnesota to run fora third term as governor…until the Feeding Our Future controversy exploded into a statewide scandal.

Walz soon announced his retirement from politics.

Pointing out how Democratic governors let their voters illegally steal U.S. citizens’ hard-earned money derailed one Vance enemy, and the White House hopes it will soon sideline another.

“Like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Newsom is finding out that allowing massive graft has a way of catching up to you,” wrote Bob Hoge at RedState.com. “Let’s hope Comer’s committee comes up with the damning goods and ends Hair Gel’s presidential aspirations for good.”

About the Author

Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”