{"id":316828,"date":"2026-05-15T06:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/316828\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T06:50:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:50:20","slug":"a-former-becerra-aide-pleaded-guilty-in-a-fraud-case-i-still-have-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/316828\/","title":{"rendered":"A former Becerra aide pleaded guilty in a fraud case. I still have questions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Dana Williamson, one of the political heavyweights at the center of a financial scandal involving gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, looked shell-shocked Thursday morning<\/a> in a federal courtroom in downtown Sacramento, as most folks do when bad choices collide with the hard realities of the justice system. <\/p>\n

A thousand-yard stare in her eyes, Williamson responded \u201cguilty\u201d three times<\/a> in a voice that required a microphone to be heard as the judge walked her through a plea deal reached days before with the U.S. Department of Justice. She likely won\u2019t be sentenced until fall (possibly close to the general election) but will \u2014 again, just a likely here \u2014 at best face home confinement and at worst more than three years in prison. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a colossal fall for a woman who wasn\u2019t so much a consultant as a political operative to Becerra, Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Gov. Jerry Brown<\/a> and a slew of companies including Meta and PG&E. She was known at the Capitol as a woman who got things done, sometimes with finesse, sometimes not. <\/p>\n

It was her savvy and ability to deliver whatever was needed through her deep connections and knowledge of the complicated structures \u2014 official and cultural \u2014 that govern the California halls of power that make her predicament all the more confounding. Especially because, far from stealing money for self-enrichment, she actually paid money to be part of this scheme. <\/p>\n

That alone, to me, raises questions. <\/p>\n

Though Williamson\u2019s guilty plea may seem like an ending to the saga, it shouldn\u2019t be, because there\u2019s still a lot lurking in the dark corners of this deal. <\/p>\n

If Becerra makes it past the primary, which seems (I\u2019ll use that word again) likely, voters have a right to know. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the simple backstory, according to court documents. Becerra\u2019s close aide, Sean McCluskie, took a pay cut to remain with his boss when he moved to Washington to become President Biden\u2019s secretary of Health and Human Services. <\/p>\n

Strapped for cash, McCluskie asked Williamson to receive money from Becerra\u2019s dormant campaign account \u2014 which Becerra was legally not allowed to manage while holding federal office \u2014 and pass it through a bunch of other accounts before giving it to McCluskie\u2019s wife as payment for a nonexistent job. <\/p>\n

Williamson\u2019s attorney, McGregor Scott, said Thursday that Williamson received $7,500 each month from the Becerra account and added $2,500 from her own funds before sending it on to ultimately reach McCluskie \u2014 for a total of $10,000 a month. <\/p>\n

McCluskie was \u201cliving on a government salary,\u201d Scott said Thursday after court. \u201cWife is home with the kids. They didn\u2019t have enough money, and that\u2019s where this all originated. [Williamson] was simply trying to help a friend in a pinch as best she could.\u201d <\/p>\n

Scott, a former Bush and Trump U.S. attorney, managed to get Williamson\u2019s original 23-count indictment knocked down to the Becerra account issue, along with lying to the FBI and filing a false tax return. <\/p>\n

McCluskie entered his own guilty plea in the case<\/a> last November and is scheduled to be sentenced, along with the third lobbyist, in June. <\/p>\n

Becerra, who is a slim-margin front-runner for governor, was the victim in this case \u2014 or more precisely, his state campaign bank account was, according to court documents. <\/p>\n

There has never been any indication that Becerra was investigated as a participant, and he has forcefully denied wrongdoing, calling it a \u201cgut punch\u201d that his advisors allegedly betrayed him.<\/p>\n

That, of course, hasn\u2019t stopped the other candidates from using the case against him. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy opponents have spent millions spreading lies to purposefully mislead voters,\u201d he wrote Thursday on social media.<\/a> \u201cToday confirms what I have said from day one: I did nothing wrong. Case closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Scott, the attorney, also said Thursday that Williamson assumed, based on her conversations with McCluskie, that McCluskie had spoken to Becerra about the concept of the money transfer. Text messages in court records show a brief and ambiguous exchange between McCluskie and Williamson that backs that up.<\/p>\n

Scott said Williamson never spoke directly with Becerra about the scheme. <\/p>\n

That leaves the distinct possibility that Williamson believed Becerra knew what was happening \u2014 but never asked him. Dumb? Maybe. But Williamson isn\u2019t usually dumb. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe understanding that McCluskie conveyed to my client was it was OK to proceed,\u201d Scott said. <\/p>\n

Becerra has repeatedly said he believed the $10,000 a month was a legitimate fee being paid to manage the funds in the dormant account while he could not \u2014 though that is an amount above what is usual for such work, as my colleague Dakota Smith has reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Becerra has also repeatedly used some variation of the \u201ccase closed\u201d line, seemingly hoping to move past this scandal without further answers. <\/p>\n

But at the very least, it deserves some kind of mea culpa from Becerra or lessons learned, a more robust conversation than the brush-off it\u2019s been getting. Because either McCluskie is one heck of a con man who rolled both Becerra and Williamson, making both believe what was happening was kosher with entirely different tales, or someone isn\u2019t being entirely honest. <\/p>\n

Did Becerra never question why an account with almost no activity was costing so much to manage? Did he never wonder what Williamson was doing to earn all that money? Should he, with his decades of legal and political experience, have seen red flags, even with a trusted advisor? Or is Williamson, facing sentencing, just trying to paint herself in a sympathetic light?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to paint my client as a victim,\u201d Scott said. \u201cShe\u2019s accepted responsibility today for what she did by pleading guilty. She\u2019s now a felon. So you know, we\u2019re not trying to do anything to dance away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williamson may be done dancing, but the music\u2019s still playing, and the fancy footwork of politics continues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Dana Williamson, one of the political heavyweights at the center of a financial scandal involving gubernatorial candidate Xavier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1052,29238,15042,26484,32442,90944,60730,48,52,51,47,50,49,4263,3906,14631,1423,45662,32502,2429,4609],"class_list":["post-316828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-attorney","tag-becerra","tag-conversation","tag-court-document","tag-dana-williamson","tag-fraud-case","tag-justice-system","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-money","tag-month","tag-plea-deal","tag-question","tag-scott","tag-sean-mccluskie","tag-thursday","tag-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}