Democrats say they were shut out of ‘fraud crackdown’ event hosted by JD Vance

Three Democratic state attorneys general said their deputies were turned away from a roundtable hosted by JD Vance on Tuesday, sowing confusion about what the White House has billed as a bipartisan crackdown on fraud. After attorneys general – including New York’s Letitia James, California’s Rob Bonta and New Jersey’s Jennifer Davenport – declined a last-minute invitation to participate in the event alongside their Republican counterparts, they said representatives from their offices travelled to Washington to attend, but were shut out. “My deputy attorney general went to Washington DC today, and unfortunately was not allowed access to the meeting,” James told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, after Vance convened more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general as part of the White House’s campaign to root out fraud in government programs. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. In his remarks at the roundtable on Tuesday, Vance, chair of the White House taskforce to eliminate fraud , said representatives from the Democratic state attorneys general offices in Oregon and Connecticut were present. “This should not be a partisan effort – everybody should care about fraud,” the vice-president said, claiming that the taskforce has “exposed billions of dollars in benefits that have been stolen from the American people” since it was launched in March. …