At the Federal Bar Association’s annual qui tam conference in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 20, 2025, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Commercial Litigation Branch, Michael Granston, said in a speech that the Trump administration has no plans to change DOJ’s enforcement efforts under the False Claims Act (FCA).

“The department wants to make clear—consistent with the new administration's stated focus on achieving governmental efficiency and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse—that the department plans to continue to aggressively enforce the False Claims Act,” Granston said.

Granston noted that FCA enforcement is a profitable enterprise for the country: federal government money spent fighting healthcare fraud between 2021 and 2023 was recouped nearly threefold. He also highlighted FCA enforcement’s deterrent effect, citing an estimate that the government deters an additional $10 of fraud for every $1 it recovers through enforcement. A significant portion of the averted fraud relates to healthcare.

Although the main source of recoveries under the FCA concerns healthcare fraud, Granston emphasized that 40 percent of DOJ’s recoveries last year arose from non-healthcare matters. Areas likely to see an uptick in enforcement include customs fraud and illegal foreign trade practices, in light of the administration’s recently imposed tariffs on certain foreign goods.  

Granston’s comments are consistent with our previous guidance on this subject, when we predicted that a second Trump Administration was likely to keep pressing forward with robust healthcare enforcement—particularly through rigorous FCA enforcement. In light of yesterday’s confirmation of these enforcement priorities from DOJ, companies should anticipate little change going forward and should continue to focus on FCA and other healthcare compliance. 

Lowenstein Sandler will continue to monitor the Trump administration’s FCA priorities and their implementation. If you have questions or would like to discuss these or other FCA or healthcare fraud enforcement issues, please contact the authors of this alert.