Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
The race is on. Not just the race for California governor, but the race to be the first (or perhaps last) gubernatorial candidate to be raided by the FBI, arrested and sent to jail.
California is the most corrupt state in the country. 576 California officials were convicted of federal crimes in just the last decade. Its future governor could be the 577th criminal.
The current front runner is Attorney General Rob Bonta, Gov. Newsom’s handpicked successor, whose political prospects hit a slight bump in the road when he was forced to disclose spending
$468,000 in campaign funds on lawyers due to, what he claims is, being a witness in a federal bribery investigation. That’s a lot of money for a mere “witness” to a bribery investigation (and how exactly does a state attorney general become a ‘witness’ to a bribery investigation without making any arrests), but Bonta explained that “the attorneys that I have had been working around the clock, to be responsive, to be efficient, to be comprehensive, to be completely forthcoming in all of our information that we were providing in an effort to assist and help.”
That’s a lot of lawyers working efficiently, comprehensively, forthcomingly and responsively around the clock to be on 24/7 call for a top official who hasn’t done anything wrong.
Bonta’s problems began when the Duong family got raided along with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao (now former mayor) who was accused of accepting kickbacks from the Duongs involving California’s two biggest sources of corruption: environmentalism and homes for the homeless.
The federal witness in the case, a city council candidate, was nearly assassinated, though that hit might have involved the former Soros DA of Alameda County who has since been recalled from office. California politics is so corrupt that it can be hard to keep track of who’s bribing whom or who is trying to kill whom over some excitingly progressive form of corruption.
All of this is a problem because the Duongs had called AG Rob Bonta “uncle” and “one of the best ally to ever support and will deliver whatever we ask for when help needs in the future.”
The Duongs gave the Bontas over $172,000 which included tens of thousands to AG Bonta’s wife, Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, and since Bonta had to get rid of the money and has since spent nearly half a million on extremely “forthcoming” “around the clock” lawyers, that hasn’t paid off very well for the man Gov. Gavin Newsom had intended to succeed him.
According to AG Bonta, the feds reached out to him as a “victim”, but the Mercury reported that the (nearly assassinated) witness warned that the Duongs had a recording of the attorney general in “a compromising position” and that they had blackmail recordings of various politicians that involved “illicit activities, including the use (of) drugs among other matters.”
“That is not true. There is no video and that is false,” Bonta denied.
Attorney General Bonta may be leading in the dubious legal outcome for a potential gubernatorial candidate sweepstakes, but the good news is that he’s not alone.
In second place is Xavier Becerra, Bonta’s predecessor (and Kamala’s successor) whose gubernatorial campaign exploded when Gov. Newsom’s chief-of-staff was busted for diverting a quarter of a million from Becerra’s campaign account to Becerra’s chief-of-staff.
Officially, Becerra is the victim and described the alleged embezzlement as a “gut punch”, but some are asking questions about why the money was being moved. When Becerra, who also served as Biden’s HHS Secretary, was first asked about the strange transfers, he insisted,
“I am secretary of HHS and, by law, I have to be secretary of HHS and nothing else.”
His campaign attorney blamed the whole thing on an “account oversight.”
Three California power players have been busted in the case involving Becerra’s campaign account, another is cooperating, and it’s not impossible that the damage will spread.
For those keeping track, two former attorney generals are potentially running to be governor and are potentially in legal trouble. But at least California has plenty of “safe” candidates? Right?
Seeing the high quality of candidates in the race, Rep. Eric Swalwell, most famous for his ‘relationship’ with Fang Fang, a Chinese spy, decided to throw his hat into the ring.
Like Bonta, Swalwell claimed that he was merely a witness and helping the feds in the Fang Fang spy case. Swalwell gleefully put out an all-caps press release declaring that the House Ethics Committee made “no finding of wrongdoing” in his relationship with a Chinese spy.
Nothing thrills voters like a candidate with a glowing “no finding of wrongdoing” on his resume.
Swalwell has also been hit with a criminal referral in a mortgage and tax fraud investigation. And there are some strange payments to a Haitian staffer totaling over a third of a million.
But ties to Chinese spies and fraud allegations are basic qualifiers for California public office.
Also in the race is former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had previously tried a failed run for governor, and who was most famous for having an affair with a Telemundo reporter.
When Villaraigosa was hit with a massive ethics violations fine, he held a fundraiser to raise $123,000 to pay the fines, taking money from the campaign funds of other politicians in what, anywhere else, would itself be an ethics violation. Then there was the time that Angelene, LA’s Mayoral Yacht (yes, LA had a mayoral yacht, why would you think it wouldn’t have a mayoral yacht), had nearly half a million in federal stimulus money (out of $4.1 million) spent on it.
This officially makes Villaraigosa the least problematic candidate in the gubernatorial race.
However the current frontrunner is former Rep. Katie Porter (known as Katie Porker to some of her constituents) who started her campaign by yelling at a reporter and staffer on camera. While this seems unlikely to send her to jail, resurfaced divorce documents show that the emotionally unstable former congresswoman also raised a “ceramic bowl of steaming hot potatoes and dumped” it on her ex-husband’s head, burning his scalp. According to the divorce papers, Porter would also “claw and scratch her arms and then say to me ‘Look what you made me do!’”
Former Rep. Katie Porter is currently the front runner Democrat to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
A poll however shows that Republican Steve Hilton has a narrow lead over Porter and Chad Bianco, another Republican is in third place, ahead of Villaraigosa and Becerra.
California voters have become so desperate that the front runner is a Republican.
