JD Vance says Maine is 'bronze medalist' for highest level of fraud in the country

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Maine on Thursday, where he spoke to a crowd in Bangor about fraud impacting the state and country. He said that Maine might be "the bronze medalist" in the country when it comes to the amount of fraud in states.

Vance said that with the current Trump administration, "for once, for the first time in a very long time you've got an administration in Washington, DC that is fighting for you, fighting to protect your tax dollars and fighting to put the fraudsters in prison, which is where they belong."

He spoke on instances of people’s identities being stolen for the use of claiming hospice benefits, people driving luxury vehicles who are receiving financial assistance, and dead people still receiving food stamps, saying "it’s unbelievable how much you have been fleeced by your own government over the past 15, 20, 30 years. Nobody was looking at this."

He praised GOP former Governor Paul LePage, whom he called "the biggest advocate for your tax dollars and the biggest threat to fraudsters that ever existed in the state of Maine," and said that the problem of fraud "has festered in Maine because this guy is no longer the governor of Maine. So we’re gonna send him to Washington and fight fraud at the federal level." LePage is running for US House in Maine, seeking to win the Second Congressional District currently held by Democrat Jared Golden. 

He pushed back on the idea that fraud is a victimless crime, saying that those affected include the American taxpayer, as well as people whose lives and jobs are affected by their identities being stolen for the purposes of fraud. "Fraud is exactly what happens when you've got a government that is not fighting for the American people, but is fighting for fraudsters and illegal aliens. And it had to stop," he said.

Vance said he is "heartbroken" by the fraud that has taken place in Maine, saying that "outside of Minnesota and California, which are probably number one and number two, if they’re the gold medalist and the silver medalist … maybe Maine is the bronze medalist." He noted after a crowd member shouted out New York that the Empire State may also be in the running for third place. 

"if you look at the fraud that has happened in this state, if you look at the illegal immigrant communities who have taken benefits that ought, by rights, go to the people in this room, what you have in Maine is a festering problem where people have been taken advantage of, and they've been stolen from and your government hasn't done anything about it," Vance said. 

"You ask yourself, why did Maine go from a state that did not have a serious fraud problem to one where I can honestly say it's one of the worst states in the union? And I'll give you two answers and two politicians: Number one is Janet Mills, and number two is Joe Biden. And thankfully, one of them has already been kicked to the curb, and one is on her way out the door, exactly as it should be."

He noted that under LePage’s term, who served as governor before Mills took office, the Republican leader doubled the number of fraud investigations in the state, required personal photos on EBT cards to confirm a recipient’s identity, "and he cracked down on the international fraud rings that were taking advantage of this great state."

He said the state now has a government "that seems not to care about you, but sure as hell cares about Somali fraudsters who are making millions and millions of dollars off of your taxpayer money."

Vance noted that illegal immigration and the policies of the Joe Biden administration also have a role to play in fraud, saying he would "love to work with the governor of Maine to stop the fraud," and that it "should not be a red state or a blue state issue," however, Mills has prevented local police from working with the federal government to get out criminal illegal aliens. 

He highlighted the case of Rakiya Mohamed, an illegal immigrant who claimed to have been providing interpretive services to immigrants in Maine, and was reimbursed through Medicaid. "It turns out that Rakiya Mohamed was not a particularly upstanding citizen. So while she said that she was providing interpretation services, you know what she was actually doing? Providing zero services and collecting that $15 million over a five-year period that was going directly into her pocket." Mohamed has been convicted. 

He said that he finds it "preposterous" that "it’s not just that we found tens of millions of dollars of fraud in a relatively small state, it’s that we’ve had no cooperation from the state government." He urged citizens to come forward if they have tips about fraud in the state, noting the impact that independent journalist Nick Shirley made with his reporting on Minnesota fraud, and urged states, regardless of the leading party, to work with the administration to root out fraud.