President Donald Trump has pledged that Americans who step forward to expose fraud against the government will not be left to face retaliation alone — if a future Democratic administration tries to go after them for it, he will use the presidential pardon power to protect them before he leaves office.
Trump made the promise in the Oval Office on Tuesday, October 20, as he launched the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program alongside Vice President JD Vance. The Daily Wire's Mary Margaret Olohan asked the president whether he worried that a future Democratic administration might target reporters or other citizens who exposed fraud. Trump pointed straight at the threat he had in mind — remarks by Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin, who told an audience at the University of Chicago that she wants young graduates to think working for Trump means "buying myself a ton of problems." "They want to frighten people," Trump said. "I heard it from Elissa Slotkin."
Then came the pledge itself. "If I see somebody that's unfairly treated, I have the power of pardons," Trump said. "There's those that say it's the strongest power a president has. And if I have to use it to protect people like Nick, I'd use it very openly, very gladly." The "Nick" in question is Nick Shirley, the 24-year-old independent journalist whose video exposing alleged fraud at Minnesota childcare centers forced the issue into the national spotlight — and who stood beside the president in the Oval Office as the program's first reward recipient.
The program Trump unveiled is built to reward exactly that kind of exposure. Under the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program, any American can report suspected fraud through fraud.gov, and the Justice Department's whistleblower rewards program will pay between $10,000 and $30,000 for original, truthful information that leads to criminal charges. The Treasury Department is putting $25 million behind the effort, and the eligible areas include health care fraud, food-stamp (SNAP) fraud, unemployment fraud and student-aid fraud.
On camera, the president went well beyond the written terms. "You, let's say, report and you find a billion dollars — we are giving a commission to that person of 1 percent," Trump said. "It's a lot of money. And if it's $10 billion, $200 billion, $400 billion, we're giving a 1 percent commission to that person. You have to prove that you were the one." Asked whether the 1 percent really had no ceiling and whether a conviction was required, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, the fraud task force's vice chair, confirmed: "It's 1 percent. There's no limit." Trump added that no criminal charges are necessary — if the government recovers the money, the person who exposed the fraud gets paid.
And if two people ever fight over who deserves a reward, Trump said there will be no years of litigation — he will settle it himself. "I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions," he said. "In other words, I'll determine whether or not the person is deserving — and I will be very generous, believe me. I promise you, I'll be fair. It'll be a binding arbitration. You'll get your money immediately, but I'll make the determination." Vance, who chairs the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud that Trump created in March, joked in response: "That's the answer. I quit while I'm ahead."
The first American to benefit from the program was standing in the room. Shirley received a $10,000 reward for the December video in which he visited Minnesota childcare centers that were collecting public money while appearing to provide no services. "Nick is going to get a financial reward for doing so," Vance said. "I know that's not why he did it." Shirley told the room that after his video, "instead of the mainstream media investigating the fraud, they investigated me," and delivered the line that summed up the day: "When you expose fraud, you help save America."
The scale of what whistleblowers are being asked to help find is enormous. Colin McDonald, who leads the Justice Department's new National Fraud Division, told the president there is "upwards of $800 billion of taxpayer money that is stolen by fraudsters" every year — an administration figure. Trump cited 115 arrests and charges in Minnesota since he took office and 75 convictions, and one woman who appeared in Shirley's video, Fahima Mahamud, pleaded guilty in July to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States over inflated meal-reimbursement claims, according to the Justice Department.
The new program also reaches fraud that existing law does not pay to expose. Under the False Claims Act, dating to 1863, whistleblowers who sue on the government's behalf can keep 15 to 30 percent of what is recovered — but only in a narrow slice of cases. "I think that's a fundamentally dishonest question," Vance told a reporter who raised the comparison, "because over 99 percent of the fraud that we're finding in the federal government isn't covered by the False Claims Act. What the president is saying is he wants all fraud to be the sort of thing where, if you find it, if you uncover it, you should be able to benefit."
Not everyone welcomed the announcement. Naomi Seligman, president of the nonprofit Whistleblower Aid, said in a statement that if the president is "truly interested in rooting out wrongdoing," he should start by examining violations by his own administration. Democrats are expected to argue the program pays bounties before its rules are fully written — the 1 percent commission Trump described on camera had not yet appeared in the program's written guidance on Tuesday, a gap the administration will have to close on paper. The announcement also landed exactly two weeks before the midterm elections, in a campaign season where the administration has made fraud its domestic centerpiece; Trump left the Oval Office for a rally in North Carolina the same evening.
For ordinary Americans, though, the message from the Oval Office was simple: report fraud, get rewarded — and if anyone in a future administration tries to punish you for it, the pardon pen is ready. "If you want to help us stop it," Vance said, "you get to share in the rewards now." Tips are open at fraud.gov.
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