Fraud against the government is a huge problem, with the misappropriation of federal funds involving Somali-owned child care centers in Minnesota being just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, according to Government Accounting Office estimates, the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud.
Fraud involving federal set-aside programs is particularly pernicious. These programs typically reserve government benefits exclusively for small, disadvantaged businesses to ensure that they can compete on a level playing field against large companies. But some ineligible large companies seek to exploit these programs by performing the work while having a small, disadvantaged business act as a front.
To its credit, the Trump administration is aggressively pursuing abuses of federal set-aside programs by large companies claiming benefits to which they are not entitled. For example, in June 2025, the Small Business Administration launched a comprehensive program of its 8(a) Business Development Program, starting with high-dollar and limited-competition contracts. Likewise, the Treasury Department recently launched its own probe into preference-based contracts, most of which were awarded by the Biden Administration’s equity-in-procurement initiative.
The Justice Department has the opportunity to deal with similar alleged fraud perpetrated in a spectrum auction conducted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015. In that auction, DISH allegedly set up two sham entities to take advantage of a 25% discount on spectrum licenses—a discount reserved for bona fide very small businesses to enable them to enter the wireless market against larger, established competitors. DISH allegedly established these sham entities to acquire discounted spectrum to which the multi-billion-dollar conglomerate was not entitled under FCC rules. The evidence shows DISH’s sham entities won $13.3 billion worth of licenses, but only paid three-quarters of that because of the falsely-claimed discount.
These alleged fraudulent activities are the subject of a complaint filed by Vermont National Telephone Company under the False Claims Act, which seeks to remedy damages to the federal government caused by DISH and its alleged sham entities. Under the Trump Administration, the DOJ and the FCC filed a statement expressing the government’s interest in the case. The D.C. Circuit further found that Vermont National had sufficiently alleged a cause of action under the False Claims Act, and the case was proceeding to trial.
With just weeks before the close of discovery, the Biden Justice Department had an inexplicable change of heart, advising that the government would seek dismissal of Vermont National’s case. Not coincidentally, the DOJ first indicated its intention to seek dismissal less than a month after Charlie Ergen, DISH’s CEO, and his wife collectively contributed more than $100,000 to President Biden’s re-election efforts and just days after the Biden Administration awarded DISH a $50 million grant.
Allowing Vermont National’s False Claims Act case to be dismissed after nearly a decade would reward, to paraphrase Sen. Chuck Grassley, the “rot infesting the Biden/Garland DOJ,” which weaponized the DOJ to punish its enemies and benefit its supporters. Dismissal of Vermont National’s case also would discourage whistleblowers from pursuing similar fraud claims in the future.
Allowing Vermont National’s case to move forward would be consistent with President Trump’s administration-wide efforts to root out fraud in government programs. It would hold DISH accountable for its alleged fraudulent conduct in an FCC spectrum auction and could add billions of dollars to the coffers of the U.S. Treasury.
MIKE DAVIS
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