The Trump administration is promoting a $17.5 billion figure as “suspected health care fraud,” even though the money represents the value of financial activity that banks reported as suspicious — not actually stolen from Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurers.
The distinction is significant because a suspicious activity report is not a criminal charge, much less a conviction. Financial institutions routinely file such reports under the Bank Secrecy Act when transactions meet specified criteria or display patterns warranting additional scrutiny.
Yet the Treasury Department announced Wednesday that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network had “identified approximately $17.5 billion in suspicious financial activity potentially linked to health care fraud,” while placing a far more definitive headline on the announcement: “Treasury Uncovers $17.5 Billion in Suspected Health Care Fraud.”
FinCEN actually analyzed 5,702 Bank Secrecy Act reports submitted by financial institutions between March 1, 2025, and Feb. 28, 2026. Treasury itself repeatedly describes the underlying activity as “potential,” “suspected,” or “suspicious,” rather than adjudicated fraud.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent nevertheless portrayed the reports as providing information about “illicit actors who deliberately exploit U.S. health care benefits programs.”
That assertion goes beyond what filing a suspicious activity report establishes. A bank may suspect that financial activity is connected to fraud and alert federal authorities without knowing whether a crime occurred, who committed it, or whether an innocent explanation exists.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said efforts by Health Care Fraud Strike Force teams, 56 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, and 45 State Attorneys General’s Offices nationwide resulted in charges against 455 defendants for alleged participation in health care fraud and opioid abuse schemes.
Those 455 defendants would not make up ten percent of the 5,702 reports Bessent is trying to pass off as health care fraud.
The distinction is one the Trump administration should understand particularly well.
Capital One has told a federal court that it closed hundreds of accounts associated with the Trump Organization and other Trump-affiliated entities after a months-long anti-money-laundering review. The bank said its specialists identified transaction patterns among types of activity flagged as money-laundering and terrorist-financing “red flags” in federal banking guidance.
Capital One has not alleged that Trump or his companies actually committed money laundering. The suspicious transactions and anti-money-laundering concerns triggered scrutiny and ultimately contributed to the bank’s decision to terminate the accounts. They did not establish criminal guilt.
The episode provides a conspicuous example of the problem with the administration’s rhetoric: If suspicious banking activity were equivalent to established criminal conduct, the same reasoning could be applied to Trump’s own businesses.
It cannot.
Suspicion is evidence warranting investigation, not proof of a crime.
Trump granted clemency to Medicare fraudster
The administration’s aggressive record of fighting health care fraud contrasts with Trump’s clemency to the man convicted in the biggest Medicare fraud case in history, a defendant whose guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt.
Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, was convicted by a federal jury in 2017 on 67 criminal counts stemming from a massive Medicare fraud scheme.
Federal prosecutors said Melgen falsely diagnosed Medicare patients with macular degeneration and performed and billed for excessive or medically unnecessary procedures, including injections and laser treatments. At sentencing, a federal judge determined that the intended fraud loss exceeded $70 million and that Medicare’s actual loss was $42 million.
Melgen was sentenced in 2018 to 17 years in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $53 million in restitution. Justice Department records list his convictions as 36 counts of health care fraud, 19 counts involving false or fraudulent claims, and 11 counts of making false statements relating to health care.
Trump commuted Melgen’s 204-month prison sentence to time served as he left office in January 2021.
The contrast is difficult to miss.
In Melgen’s case, there was no need to infer criminality from a bank’s suspicions. Federal investigators developed evidence, prosecutors presented it at an eight-week jury trial, jurors returned guilty verdicts on dozens of counts, and a federal judge imposed a 17-year sentence.
Trump nevertheless granted him clemency.
Five years later, Trump’s Treasury Department is presenting $17.5 billion worth of merely suspicious transactions under a headline declaring that Treasury “uncovers” billions in suspected health care fraud, while Bessent describes people implicated by financial intelligence as “illicit actors” who “deliberately exploit” government health programs.
The administration’s characterization fits a broader criticism frequently leveled at Trump and his officials: that government announcements can use sweeping or categorical language where the underlying evidence supports a substantially narrower claim. In this instance, Treasury’s own data provides the qualification.
FinCEN did not establish that $17.5 billion was stolen.
It identified approximately $17.5 billion in financial activity reported as suspicious and potentially connected to health care fraud.
That difference is not semantic. It is the difference between a lead and evidence, between suspicion and proof, and ultimately between an allegation and a crime established in court.
Bessent cannot claim that he was not lying. The report from which he got the data says, “Suspicious activity reporting reflects only suspicious activity that has been identified and reported by financial institutions and, therefore, should not be considered a complete representation of the scope of any particular type of suspicious activity.”
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