When Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s former chief of staff agreed to plead guilty in mid-May to three federal charges, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of California, Lauren Horwood, told CalMatters in an email, \u201cno candidate running for governor has been implicated in any charging document.\u201d<\/p>\n
That carefully worded statement does not exclude the possibility that a candidate for governor has been implicated in some other document, and it doesn\u2019t leave the current governor in the clear, either.<\/p>\n
Dana Williamson was indicted in November 2025 on 23 counts that included conspiracy, bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return and making false statements. Newsom told KCRA 3 in Sacramento at the time that he was \u201cfirst made aware of the investigation almost a year ago\u201d and had placed Williamson on leave at that time. She left the administration in December 2024.<\/p>\n
An attorney for Williamson told reporters that federal investigators had previously approached Williamson asking for information about Newsom, and she informed them that she had none because Newsom had committed no crime.<\/p>\n
Including Williamson, three people have now entered guilty pleas and are cooperating in the strange case of the slow looting of an unused campaign account belonging to Xavier Becerra, now a candidate for governor. Becerra told KCRA that learning of the charges was \u201ca gut punch.\u201d<\/p>\n
FBI Sacramento Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel told reporters that the charges against Williamson were \u201cthe result of three years of relentless investigative work, in partnership with IRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, Joe Biden was president.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Newsom told KCRA last fall that he wondered whether \u201cthe Trump administration had politicized this.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was his message again on Monday, when he released a four-minute video accusing the president of launching an investigation into himself and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, only because he is \u201cconsidering\u201d running for president.<\/p>\n
If he ever actually does announce his candidacy, he\u2019ll have to open a federal campaign account and start filing reports about fundraising and expenditures, signing them on penalty of perjury, which is what Xavier Becerra did with his looted California campaign account, even though he says now that he knew nothing.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Californians are left to wonder whether the current governor and the Democratic candidate for governor are at risk of being dragged off the political stage in handcuffs.<\/p>\n
Much of the sketchy fundraising and spending in California politics is completely legal under state law if the forms are filled out correctly, even though quite a lot of it would get politicians in other states arrested for bribery, extortion or money laundering.<\/p>\n
For example, the \u201cNewsom for California Governor 2022\u201d committee is still open and active even though the campaign is long over. Earlier this year, the committee reported a $2.6 million refund of its earlier contribution to Newsom\u2019s separate \u201cYes on 50\u201d ballot measure committee. The \u201cNewsom for California\u201d committee also paid for a CaliforniaFireFacts.com site in 2025 that featured a dramatic photo of Newsom in an action pose on a smoky street along with a donation button labeled \u201cContribute to the California Fire Foundation\u201d that actually took donors to ActBlue Charities, Inc., under a banner for Newsom\u2019s federal political action committee, \u201cCampaign for Democracy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Newsom was recently fined $31,500 by state regulators for being late to report 36 \u201cbehested payments\u201d totaling more than $5.5 million. As it happens, 34 of those unreported payments went to the California Fire Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cBehested payment\u201d is California\u2019s name for what happens when an elected official calls up companies, unions or trade organizations with business before the state and asks them to donate any amount to an entity for a charitable, governmental or legislative purpose. Payments totaling $5,000 or more in a calendar year from a single source must be reported. It\u2019s as if California has a form to confess extortion.<\/p>\n
The late-reported payments might have raised questions at the time. Blackrock, Uber Eats and Lockheed Martin were \u201cbehested\u201d out of $500,000 each. PayPal was hit up for $250,000. Kaiser paid $100,000.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not always charity, either. Newsom raised more than $8 million from special interests for his two inaugural celebrations through \u201cbehested payments\u201d and later gave $5 million of it to the California Protocol Foundation, which paid the expenses of his flashy trips to China and international climate conferences.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Siebel Newsom has also seen the benefits of this racket. Her husband has \u201cbehested\u201d more than $4 million to \u201csupport the work\u201d of her nonprofit, the California Partners Project. In March, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria were persuaded to contribute another $500,000 after similar contributions in previous years.<\/p>\n
The exact path of the money out of the California Partners Project, and whether any of it crosses a line into using a nonprofit for personal benefit, may or may not be explained in future federal documents. All we know is that FBI Sacramento Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel said \u201cIRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office\u201d have been doing \u201crelentless work\u201d for three years.<\/p>\n
As long as they\u2019re looking, they might want to investigate the strange phenomenon of legislative caucus foundations. These are 501(c)(3) organizations run by current legislators in Sacramento. Donations are apparently deductible. The \u201casks\u201d are reported as \u201cbehested payments.\u201d<\/p>\n
For example, the Legislative Black Caucus Policy Institute has a mission of \u201cpromotion and support of African-American culture in California.\u201d Its 2024 federal tax return reported gross receipts of more than $2.4 million. It paid the Pebble Beach Company $1,058,113 for a \u201cfundraising event venue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The principal officer listed on the IRS 990 form is Assemblymember Lori Wilson, who reported \u201cbehested payments\u201d to the Legislative Black Caucus Policy Institute in 2024 totaling $2.25 million, including $65,000 each from Southern California Edison and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.<\/p>\n
There are also \u201cLatino,\u201d \u201cJewish,\u201d \u201cAsian-Pacific Islander,\u201d \u201cLGBTQ,\u201d and \u201cCalifornia Central Coast\u201d legislative caucus foundations. They all hold fundraising events. Donations can come from companies with business before the lawmakers\u2019 committees.<\/p>\n
Is it charity? Is it lobbying? Is it bribery? Is it extortion? Is it deductible?<\/p>\n
Stay tuned. We\u2019ll all find out together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s former chief of staff agreed to plead guilty in mid-May to three federal charges,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,111828,179,181,23,100,180,975],"class_list":["post-369471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-columnists","tag-community","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369471","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=369471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}