FIRST ON FOX: The Vance-led anti-fraud task force and the General Services Administration uncovered more than $1.2 billion in suspected COVID-era contract fraud as the White House anti-fraud task force continues its crackdown across the country.

The General Services Administration, along with the Department of Health and Human Services, found that COVID emergency contracting continued after the pandemic emergency officially ended. The agencies also revealed that millions of vaccine contracts were awarded even after the pandemic ended under the Biden administration.

“The COVID emergency ended over three years ago, yet fraudsters continue to weaponize outdated emergency contracts to abuse taxpayer dollars,” GSA Administrator Edward C. Forst told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and Vice President Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, GSA uncovered $1.22 billion in suspected fraud across five HHS COVID-era contracts.”

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“GSA will continue to work with the Vice President’s task force to stop improper payments, refer suspected fraud to law enforcement, and fight to recover every dollar,” he added.

While the funding uncovered is not currently tied to criminal charges for contractors, the agencies have pinpointed a significant amount of taxpayer dollars that may have otherwise been distributed for COVID vaccines and other pandemic-related services long after the national emergency ended.

GSA estimates that an estimated 93% of the funding for the contracts has not yet been distributed to vendors, while roughly 6.78% has already been expended. The agency has since suspended payments to contractors as part of the initiative.

“The COVID emergency ended in 2023. The emergency contract advantage didn’t — until now.”

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White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud Executive Director Scott Brady told Fox News Digital in a statement. “GSA’s review uncovered $1.22 billion in suspected fraud and stopped $41 million more across five HHS COVID-era contracts that kept the emergency label alive long after the emergency was gone.”

Brady said that allocated emergency funding “is a privilege, not a blank check,” while describing contractors who received funding to combat the pandemic at the time as “honest.” He characterized any funding that was distributed beyond the emergency as a “free pass.”

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The announcement comes after the General Services Administration found more than $13 billion in suspected contractor fraud in late August, and the Trump administration has declared a total of more than $245.7 billion has been uncovered since the president took office and that it has prevented an annualized $62.9 billion in fraudulent payments.

The White House anti-fraud task force also says that more than $59.1 billion in indictments and settlements are being enforced.

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The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, has uncovered the most significant amount of fraud at $96.4 billion.

As for the beneficiaries of fraudulent activity, the Trump administration has identified some foreign nationals who have infiltrated the federal contracting system and acquired funds while still residing in their home countries.

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Earlier this month the FBI released a “Most Wanted” list highlighting alleged fraud suspects as the administration continues its broader crackdown on fraud. Officials say the involvement of foreign nationals in multiple schemes has heightened concerns about overseas actors exploiting U.S. government programs.

Among those named is Onur Simsek, a Turkish national whom the FBI believes is living in Turkey. Prosecutors accuse Simsek of leading a defense procurement fraud scheme that secured U.S. military contracts by falsely certifying Turkish-made parts as tested and qualified, potentially rendering critical military equipment inoperable.

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Federal authorities allege Simsek is one of a number of foreign nationals who have infiltrated and exploited U.S. federal funds to obtain taxpayer funds.

In an interview with Fox News Digital last month, Vice President JD Vance said authorities have observed what he described as a “clear pattern” in some fraud cases involving immigrant communities.

“You definitely see patterns in certain communities,” Vance said. “It’ll start as maybe one Somali person takes advantage of the system, or realizes you don’t even have to have children to get money from these programs. You could just claim that you have children, there’s no verification. Then, word spreads like wildfire, and that program gets tapped into by the same members of that community.”

Despite voter fury and rising fuel prices, most Republican senators stayed the course with President Donald Trump and his war on Iran in a vote Thursday.

Though vulnerable Republicans on the campaign trail broke with Trump earlier this week, calling for an “immediate end” to the war, lawmakers on the Hill stuck with him and defeated another attempt by Democrats to rein in his war authorities as the conflict nears the eight-month mark.

Still, there was a group of rebellious Republicans who had consistently voted with Democrats, including Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Rand Paul, R-Ky. New blood was added this time with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

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Tillis, who is retiring at the end of the year, argued his decision to vote for the latest war powers resolution came after the administration again blew past a 60-day deadline to involve Congress.

“We know the resolution’s not gonna pass, but it is important to start saying, ‘We deserve an update. You better start treating — Congress can be an assistance with this war effort, if you inform us,’” Tillis said.

To Tillis’ point, the resolution that failed in the Senate, which passed in the House with seven Republican defectors, would have headed to the president’s desk, where it likely would have been vetoed. And without a veto-proof majority, the effort wouldn’t have teeth legally. However, it will hurt on the airwaves in the ads to come.

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Thursday’s vote comes as Republicans are getting an earful about the war, particularly over skyrocketing gas and diesel prices, on the campaign trail. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged that fuel prices are a growing issue for Americans.

“Well, I think people are, there’s voter fatigue with high gas prices and high diesel prices in my part of the world,” Thune said.

“So, that’s a frustration, it’s an economic frustration, and that’s why, again, I hope the administration is laser-focused on trying to get the [Strait of Hormuz] open, get the shipping lights opened up, and help out with that global energy supply, because that ultimately will get prices down,” he continued.

Three vulnerable Republicans running for toss-up seats this week, Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, former Rep. Mike Rogers in Michigan, and Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, all requested that the fighting come to an “immediate end” as the war grows in unpopularity with their voters.

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Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who has acted as the self-anointed traffic cop for the deluge of Democratic war powers resolutions over the last several months, diagnosed the defections as a by-product of reports that U.S. bombs had fallen on an Iranian school and that diesel costs are “going up and up and up.”

“They are listening to their constituents. They should [have] listened to them before now, because their constituents were saying, ‘Don’t get into this thing,’” Kaine said. “But they’re finally listening to them. And nothing makes you listen as much as an election staring you in the face.”

But Trump isn’t swayed by the effects that the conflict could have on the midterm elections as the GOP fights to keep power in Congress.

“The Republican Party is running, and I’ll be helping them, but I am not running,” Trump told reporters this week. “I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn’t even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

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Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephen Descano is facing a forceful rebuke from a former federal prosecutor who extensively criticized his record after announcing her bid to unseat him.

Descano, a Democrat, has faced criticism over what opponents describe as lenient prosecutorial decisions, particularly in serious cases involving illegal immigrant suspects. Former federal prosecutor Brittany Dunn-Pirio said that if there weren’t systemic problems in his office, she would want to work there.

“If this office were doing its job, I wouldn’t be running against it. I’d be applying to work for it. But it isn’t,” Dunn-Pirio said on her new campaign website after Washington, D.C.-area media reported her bid late Wednesday.

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“I’m a Democrat. This race isn’t about whether reform was right. It’s about whether the office can tell the difference between a first-time nonviolent offender who deserves a second chance and a violent or sexual offender who doesn’t,” Dunn-Pirio said on her website.

“It’s about whether deadlines are met, evidence is given to the defendant and victims are spoken to.”

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Fox News Digital reached out to Descano and Dunn-Pirio for further comment.

Descano campaign spokesman Nathan Kiker defended the incumbent’s record, telling Fox News Digital that “Steve Descano has spent his tenure proving that you can reform the justice system and keep our community safe at the same time.”

“Today, Fairfax County is recognized as the safest large county in the nation because Steve focused on accountability and the root causes of crime rather than failed policies of the past. We are proud to put that record before the voters,” Kiker said.

Dunn-Pirio also pointed to “botched sexual assault cases” and prosecutors declining to meet with victims, along with her contention that the justice system too often favors the “well-connected.”

One case that has drawn the scrutiny of Descano’s office involves Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone charged with murdering Stephanie Minter. Minter was stabbed and killed at a Hybla Valley bus stop in February after Jalloh had cycled through the criminal justice system following numerous previous arrests.

Descano has pushed back on claims that his office simply allowed Jalloh to walk free, telling Congress his prosecutors obtained convictions against him “wherever possible.”

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Dunn-Pirio previously served as a prosecutor in Frederick County, Virginia, and as a federal prosecutor in the district covering Lexington, Kentucky. She said she resigned from the DOJ in 2025 after working on COVID-related fraud and similar cases.

“I couldn’t stomach propping up a system that gave pardons to the well-connected while prosecuting average Americans for the same conduct,” she said, according to a release obtained by FairfaxNow.

She also said Descano’s office has spent too much time “failing the people I care about.”

A carousel on her new campaign website highlights cases that have drawn public scrutiny of Descano, including:

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“We need a Commonwealth’s Attorney who can make this office work,” Dunn-Pirio said. “Every person in Fairfax should feel safe, and every person in Fairfax should be able to trust the office that’s supposed to protect them.”

Descano’s campaign did not immediately respond to an additional request for comment on Dunn-Pirio’s criticism.

Dunn-Pirio, most recently an associate at the civil litigation firm Harman, Claytor, Corrigan & Wellman, served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Kentucky for two years before resigning in November 2025. At the Justice Department, she specialized in COVID relief fraud and public corruption cases, according to her LinkedIn profile.

“Most recently I was a federal prosecutor, and I resigned from the Justice Department because I couldn’t stomach propping up a system that gave pardons to the well-connected while prosecuting average Americans for the same conduct,” Dunn-Pirio said.

Before becoming a federal prosecutor in 2023, Dunn-Pirio served as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Frederick County, an assistant attorney general in the state criminal appeals courts and a law clerk to Judge Randy Bellows in Fairfax County Circuit Court.

Dunn-Pirio emphasized that she is a “cradle Democrat,” distinguishing her candidacy from a challenge to Descano from the political right.

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