Newsom Covered Up FBI Investigation Into Him

When Dana Williamson, Newsom’s chief of staff, came under FBI investigation, the governor did not disclose the investigation.

Instead, Gov. Gavin Newsom put her on leave and praised “her insight, tenacity, and big heart.”

Why did Newsom cover up the investigation? Because it was really an investigation of him.

Williamson’s lawyer said that the FBI had been conducting a probe into Newsom and someone close to the former chief-of-staff claimed that “federal investigators tried to pressure Williamson into implicating Newsom.” They didn’t describe what it is Newsom might have been doing.

While his chief of staff was being arrested as part of a raid, Newsom had disappeared into the Brazilian rainforest after attending the UN’s COP30 conference in Brazil and to see the ‘effects of climate change’ in person while his spokesperson issued a statement claiming that Williamson “no longer serves in this administration” even though the alleged crimes were committed while she did, and implying that Trump was behind it. “At a time when the President is openly calling for his attorney general to investigate his political enemies, it is especially important to honor the American principle of being innocent until proven guilty.”

But the investigation began during the Biden administration before Trump came into office.

And it may entangle not only Newsom and kill his political prospects, but also those of his potential successor, former state attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, who also served in the Biden administration, as well as other Biden administration figures.

While Williamson, described by other Democrats as a “mafia boss”, was unknown to 99% of Californians, some called her the woman who pulled the strings and ran the state.

“Particularly for this governor, who has been distracted by his political aspirations, she’s literally been running the government,” a California Democrat power broker had claimed. “If you want to reach the governor, you want to call Dana first. She’s the filter for everything that gets to the governor.”

Newsom’s “filter”, according to the indictment and the FBI had engaged in public corruption under the governor, diverting $225,000 from Becerra’s campaign account to Sean McCluskie, Becerra’s former chief of staff, and also claiming $1.7 million in false businesses expenses including a $170,000 birthday trip to Mexico and a $15,000 handbag.

While the motive for Williamson’s $170,000 birthday trip is obvious, her reasons for moving a quarter of a million to McCluskie, who worked for Becerra when he succeeded Kamala as attorney general and then worked for him in the Biden administration, are unexplained.

Either Williamson allegedly committed a crime likely to send her to prison just because she liked McCluskie or the money may have been part of a much larger payment and rewards structure.

After the indictments, Becerra, who wants to be California’s next governor, issued a statement, claiming that the “news today of formal accusations of impropriety by a long-serving trusted advisor are a gut punch.” But if it was really a “gut punch”, it was a very slow one. Becerra, a former lawyer, was careful to specify “formal accusations” because he had been asked about the mysterious funds going out of his campaign account last year and refused to answer.

“I am secretary of HHS and, by law, I have to be secretary of HHS and nothing else,” Becerra insisted at the time that he couldn’t discuss his campaign fund for a gubernatorial run because he was serving in the Biden administration. His campaign attorney explained that the campaign war chest, left over from his time as attorney general, was spending six figures from a $1.5 million total on “account oversight”. That would be excessive even in the political world.

And yet Becerra hid behind his job in the Biden administration and refused to comment on it.

Initial reports claimed that the money was going to the Podesta Group. And the Podesta family was one of the biggest power players in Democrat circles. Especially in D.C.

John Podesta had been Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, the founder of the Center for American Progress and the co-chair of Obama’s transition team (effectively staffing the Obama administration), Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, and a key Biden adviser.

His brother, Tony Podesta had founded People for the American Way and run the third largest lobbying firm in D.C. before being entangled in the Mueller investigation over ties to a Russian front group in Ukraine, referred for prosecution only for the Justice Department to do nothing.

The Becerra campaign claimed that this was a “data entry error” and that the money was actually going to Alexis Podesta, a former Feinstein aide working for the Newsom administration, who was supposedly being paid to oversee the Becerra campaign.

Alexis Podesta has been named as one of the unnamed co-conspirators in the case and apparently flipped on Williamson. According to her lawyer, she began cooperating when she realized that Newsom’s chief of staff had entangled her in financial crimes. “At that time, I had no reason to question the legitimacy of the account,” Podesta said in a statement.

But why did Newsom’s chief of staff, a former chief of staff to two California assembly speakers (now serving as the chief lobbyist for Fresno) allegedly take risks to move a lot of money to another chief of staff? And how would this have led to a probe into Newsom’s affairs?

Campaign spending is probably the most closely regulated and the most corrupt of all the financial transactions. Legally there’s a great deal that campaign officials and candidates can’t do with their political donations, but much that they routinely do to exchange favors, reward staffers under the table and buy support so much so that political spending is a black market.

The LA times reported that 5 years ago that Williamson, as one of two Newsom chiefs of staff, a senior Newsom advisor and Alexis Podesta had formed an “influence superteam” of consultants, ‘The Collaborative’ which was described as “the hub for the most talented public affairs, campaign, crisis management, communications and lobbying firms in California.”

What was Williamson doing while “literally running the government” for Newsom?

Williamson had owned a lobbying and consulting firm and when she became Newsom’s chief of staff, she was linked by the media to some of the worst lobbying abuses, including a deal to protect Panera Bread eateries, linked to Newsom, from the minimum wage hike, and forcing out a lawyer who had been going after Activision, a gaming company accused of sexual harassment, later acquired by Microsoft, in which the charges were dropped.

During that time, an Activision board member had donated $100,000 to the campaign to protect Newsom from being recalled. A whistleblower claimed that Newsom was “mimicking the interests of Activision’s counsel.” The owner of multiple Panera outlets in California had likewise donated $100,000 to Newsom’s anti-recall campaign.

What might have the FBI been looking at when tying Williamson to Newsom? Money.

Over the last decade, 576 California officials have been convicted on federal corruption charges. And it’s not just Newsom. California’s top legislative leaders colluded to cover up investigations, claiming that “the public interest served by not making the record public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record” and that disclosing how much the California Democrat majority legislatures spent on legal bills would “violate attorney client privilege”

The cost of California’s ‘light rail’ shot up from less than $10 billion to $135 billion, billions in taxes and bonds to be spent on the homeless simply disappeared after the arrests of multiple legislators involved in the measures, the costs per apartment rose to over $500,000 and $2.5 billion in funds could not be accounted for, Newsom is offering his Hollywood donors, especially at Netflix, $750 million in film tax credits, and billions are being paid out in sex abuse settlements with no oversight or accountability. On that scale, $225,000 may have seemed so small that no one, in a completely corrupt system, would even notice or miss the money.

Gov. Gavin Newsom had every reason to cover up the FBI investigation into his affairs. But the FBI raid on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s inner circle suggests the worst is yet to come.

Source: http://www.danielgreenfield.org/feeds/199424123744989971/comments/default