U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has stood up a new division in Washington dedicated to investigating fraud against the federal government and clawing back stolen taxpayer dollars, a move that consolidates prosecutors, auditors, and investigators under one roof.
Pirro announced the creation of the Fraud and Asset Recovery Division on Wednesday, naming Dan Schiffer as chief and Sean Tepe as deputy chief. The division will handle False Claims Act cases and other civil fraud matters, pulling together federal prosecutors, investigators, auditors, and support staff who had previously been spread across existing units, WJLA reported.
The practical problem the new office is meant to solve is straightforward. The U.S. Attorney's existing Affirmative Civil Enforcement unit, the team responsible for going on offense against companies and individuals accused of cheating federal agencies, had been hamstrung by the Civil Division's heavy defensive workload. Fraud cases that should have received dedicated attention were competing for bandwidth with routine government defense work. Pirro's reorganization shifts resources away from that bottleneck and into a standalone shop built to pursue recoveries.
Pirro did not mince words about the division's purpose.
"This new Fraud and Asset Recovery Division will reinforce and consolidate our resources to hold fraudsters accountable and recover taxpayer dollars."
The False Claims Act, the federal law that allows the government to sue people and companies that submit bogus claims for federal money, is the division's primary tool. Originally signed during the Civil War to combat defense-contractor fraud, the statute has become the government's main civil weapon against healthcare billing fraud, procurement scams, and grant abuse. Pirro's office is betting that a dedicated team will produce faster investigations and larger recoveries than the old structure allowed.
Pirro has drawn both praise and fire since taking over as Washington's top federal prosecutor. A left-wing legal group filed a bar complaint against her after a grand jury declined to indict Democratic lawmakers, a move her supporters viewed as politically motivated harassment of a prosecutor doing her job.
The announcement comes as Pirro's office juggles a wide portfolio of high-profile cases in the nation's capital. Her prosecutors recently opened a rare special grand jury probe into D.C. public schools over truancy and graduation records, a case that exposed years of institutional failure in the city's education bureaucracy.
Pirro's office has also handled federal enforcement actions well beyond the courtroom. Her team played a role when the DOJ seized $560,000 in cryptocurrency bound for Hamas, exposing thousands of would-be donors funding a designated terrorist organization.
Not every case has gone smoothly. The Reflecting Pool vandalism prosecution against former Olympian David Hearn fell apart in court, raising questions about case selection and resource allocation inside the office. The fraud division, by contrast, represents a structural investment, one designed to produce measurable financial returns for the government rather than symbolic prosecutions.
Pirro tapped Schiffer to lead the division and Tepe to serve as his deputy. Neither man's prior role was disclosed in the announcement, leaving an open question about what experience they bring to the job. Their early caseload, and the dollar figures they recover, will be the clearest measure of whether this reorganization amounts to more than a reshuffled org chart.
Several details remain unclear. Pirro's office did not say how many staff members will work in the new division, what specific federal programs it will target first, or whether the reorganization comes with additional funding. The announcement also left unanswered whether the Affirmative Civil Enforcement unit will continue to exist in diminished form or be absorbed entirely.
For taxpayers who have watched billions disappear into pandemic-era fraud, procurement waste, and grant abuse with little visible consequence, a dedicated recovery shop in Washington is long overdue. The question now is whether this one has the teeth to match the promise.
