Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird was in Washington D.C. on Tuesday for a meeting of the White House Fraud Task Force led by Vice President JD Vance.
“I’m grateful for the time today with Vice President Vance, Andrew Ferguson, Stephen Miller, and the White House Fraud Task force,” Bird said in a news release issued by the Iowa AG’s Office. “I’m looking forward to the continued partnership with this administration to keep Iowans [sic] hard-earned money where it belongs — going to the programs where people desperately need them and to put criminals who commit fraud where they belong — in prison.”
Andrew Ferguson is the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Previously a staff attorney for Republicans in the U.S. Senate, Ferguson was appointed to the FTC by President Biden in 2023. President Trump made him chair in January 2025. As chair, Ferguson has downplayed the traditional autonomy of the FTC, and publicly refers to it as the “Trump-Vance FTC.” Stephen Miller is the White House Deputy Chief of Staff who has driven Trump’s aggressive anti-immigrant policies by lying about immigration law, attacking leftwing “terrorist networks,” and invoking the same racist and xenophobic dogwhistles as white nationalist groups. On Wednesday, Miller tweeted that Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, who is not transgender, is the state’s “first transgender senate candidate.” (Talarico’s Republican opponent is the Trump-endorsed Texas AG Ken Paxton, who was indicted for felony securities fraud in 2015 and impeached by Texas House Republicans in 2023 over allegations of bribery, abuse of office and other crimes.)
President Trump announced the formation of the White House Fraud Task Force in March, although Trump had been talking about it well before March. Trump has focused his claims about fraud in federal programs on Democratic-led states — including Minnesota, Maine, California and New York — and on groups he was already hostile to, mostly notably Somali immigrants and Somali-Americans in Minnesota. Trump has frequently disparaged Somalians using racist slurs, calling them, among other things, “garbage.”
Bird was one of 13 state AGs who participated in the meeting on Tuesday. All 13 are Republicans, as are 15 other state AGs who did not attend. Andy Wilson, the Republican who serves as Public Safety Director for Ohio, represented his state at the meeting. Ohio AG David Yost, also a Republican, announced earlier this month he is stepping down in June to take a job with a rightwing Christian legal organization. Gov. Mike DeWine selected Wilson to take over as acting AG after Yost leaves office on June 7.
The meeting was originally intended to be all-Republican, Politico reported, but on Friday, Vance’s office sent out invitations to Democratic AGs, who had to accept the invitations by Saturday. Republican AGs had received their invitations a week before the meeting.
“While we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day’s notice with no agenda,” the 24 Democratic AGs invited said in a letter sent to Vance on Monday evening. “This short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners. Accordingly, we respectfully decline to attend at this time.”
“We want to be clear: we share a strong and ongoing commitment to combating fraud in all its forms, including Medicaid fraud.”
The Republican Attorney General Association (RAGA) attacked the Democratic AGs on Tuesday, in a statement issued before the task force meeting started.
“While Republican Attorneys General are aggressively fighting fraud, waste, and abuse, Democrat AGs like Keith Ellison in Minnesota and Letitia James in New York knowingly aid and abet scams and fraud in their states,” RAGA Executive Director Adam Piper said. “Republican AGs are thrilled to roll up our sleeves and work with JD Vance … this is not a partisan issue. However, historical Democrat inaction speaks volumes.”
Brenna Bird is a member of RAGA’s executive committee, and RAGA’s political action committee, RAGA Action Fund, is the largest contributor to Bird’s reelection campaign. As of May 14, it has donated twice to Bird, giving her a total of $2,450,000. Both donations came at the end of a campaign finance reporting period. The first donation of $1,000,000 was delivered on Dec. 31, the final day of last year’s reporting period. A second donation of $1,425,000 was delivered on May 13, the day before the end of this year’s first reporting period.
The two donations account for 65 percent of the total amount Bird had raised in her reelection campaign as of May 14.
