President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he himself would decide who gets a payout from his administration’s new rewards program for people who submit tips about fraud to the government. That’s not what the Justice Department said.
“I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions,” Trump said. “In other words, I’ll determine whether or not the person is deserving.”
The Justice Department, meanwhile, said that awards will be made “in the Justice Department’s sole discretion following the filing of criminal charges.”
The first recipient of money from the $25 million program is right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley, whose viral 2025 video purporting to find day care fraud in Minnesota supercharged the administration’s fraud focus. The administration says that tipsters whose information leads to a successful conviction or “significant federal enforcement action” can get up to $30,000.
Trending
The president said that if there was a dispute over multiple people wanting the payout, he himself would make the call. “I’m not doing it for any other reasons other than to expedite because I think it’s very important,” he said.
A DOJ FAQ page addresses that exact situation, saying that there can be more than one whistleblower, but each has to provide separate, original and nonpublic information. If the tips are the same, whoever submitted it first would get the reward.
Who decides awards recipients isn’t the only point of confusion. The White House says that the Justice Department is running the new tip program, but the website promoting the program says that the tips go to the Treasury Department for review.
A DOJ spokesperson told The Washington Sun that the funding for the program comes from Treasury, but the DOJ is managing the program. The DOJ said that the program is meant to encourage whistleblowers to report potential tips sooner by paying them out after charges are unsealed — not after final resolution of a criminal matter, like other tip programs.
Trump said that tips could be submitted through fraud.gov. When the program was announced the intake was housed on America.gov, the Trump administration’s AI-driven clearinghouse for government services.
The administration launched America.gov with fanfare last month, saying that it would help Americans access government benefits and services more easily using its AI chatbot.
Author
