Gavin Newsom’s long trail of corrupt connections – Latest News
Gavin Newsom just lately claimed that federal brokers had launched an inquiry concentrating on him and his spouse, and proclaimed his innocence.
Yet over practically three a long time in California politics, Newsom has amassed a community of appointees, workers, and associates implicated in a vary of moral violations and legal offenses. (Newsom has by no means been charged or implicated in reference to any of the figures or incidents mentioned under.)
Dana Williamson
Governor Newsom appointed Dana Williamson, a “bareknuckle political brawler,” as chief of employees in January 2023. Less than two years later, she left the governor’s workplace after changing into the subject of a federal corruption probe. Last month, she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud.
Dana Williamson, Gov. Gavin Newsom REUTERS
Williamson was allegedly concerned in a number of corrupt schemes that started earlier than she joined Newsom’s workplace. In one, prosecutors say, she and two others conspired to empty $225,000 from a dormant marketing campaign account belonging to Xavier Becerra. In one other, Williamson claimed bogus business bills price $1.7 million, which she used to buy luxurious holidays and “private jet travel.”
London Breed
Newsom served as San Francisco mayor from 2004 to 2011. One of his most enduring “accomplishments” was boosting the political profession of London Breed, the longer term metropolis mayor who proceeded to commit a number of ethics violations.
London Breed speaks during a information convention. Getty Images
Then-Mayor Newsom appointed Breed to San Francisco’s Redevelopment Agency Commission in 2005 and named her to a post at San Francisco’s Fire Commission in 2010.
As mayor, Breed presided over the creation of the town’s racialist “Dream Keeper Initiative” and a vary of scandals. In 2021, San Francisco’s Ethics Commission fined her practically $23,000 for “Violating Campaign Finance, Ethics, and Gift Laws.”
Mohammed Nuru
Mohammed Nuru was a public works official underneath Mayor Newsom. In 2020, Nuru was arrested for his function in a large bribery and corruption scandal. He had allegedly orchestrated a bribe-and-kickback racket spanning more than a decade.
In 2022, Nuru pleaded guilty to federal costs and was sentenced to seven years in jail.
AP
Nuru had reportedly volunteered on Newsom’s first mayoral marketing campaign whereas serving in metropolis authorities. In 2003, Nuru allegedly helped orchestrate a coercive voting scheme by means of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), a city-funded nonprofit underneath contract along with his division.
Newsom received a slender runoff. He obtained roughly 25,600 more absentee votes than his opponent — the identical poll kind that 9 employees alleged they have been coerced into casting for Newsom.
Nuru claimed on the time that he by no means pressured anybody. A Newsom spokesman on the time reportedly “said that Nuru had served as a campaign volunteer but that the new mayor had no knowledge of the allegations or the investigation.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom mingles forward of the Obama Presidential Center dedication ceremony Thursday, June 18, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
Peter Ragone, Newsom’s spokesman on the time, mentioned: “There’s zero tolerance for anything like that — there was zero tolerance for that on the campaign, and it will be the same while he is mayor. … If there is due cause, there should be a fast and fair investigation.” Newsom was by no means charged or accused of legal wrongdoing within the case.
Walter Wong
Newsom and Nuru are each reportedly linked to a man named Walter Wong. In 2020, the Department of Justice introduced that Wong had been charged with a number of fraud-related counts. In 2020, he reportedly pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As half of a settlement, Wong and his firms agreed to repay the town practically $1.5 million for contracts and grants “awarded through a rigged process.”
Wong, one of San Francisco’s “most well‑known permit expediters,” apparently helped shoppers push functions by means of the town’s byzantine paperwork.
Newsom’s reported connection to Wong stems from a business enterprise. In 2003, a report emerged that Newsom’s company, PlumpJack Development Fund, had invested in a partnership referred to as Ecker‑Folsom, which employed Wong. Newsom claimed that he was a passive investor and unaware of the rent on the time, and in 2004 informed the San Francisco Chronicle that he had “never used an expediter” in any of his tasks through which he was “proactively engaged.”
Tom Girardi
In 2019, Newsom appointed Tom Girardi, a high-profile trial lawyer, to his 111-member Judicial Selection Advisory Committee. Within about a 12 months, Girardi’s unraveling started: he was accused of embezzlement in 2020, disbarred in 2022, and discovered guilty in 2024 of 4 counts of wire fraud. The Department of Justice says he embezzled tens of tens of millions of {dollars}.
tktk Los Angeles Times through Getty Images
It was a spectacular fall from grace for the litigator who claimed as soon as to have dined with President Bill Clinton. Last 12 months, Girardi, now in poor health, was sentenced to more than seven years in jail and ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution.
Newsom’s workplace didn’t offer a responsive reply to a request for touch upon Girardi.
Melahat Rafiei
In 2021, Governor Newsom appointed Melahat Rafiei, a one-time state Democratic Party official, to the Orange County Fair Board. Four years later, Rafiei was sentenced to 6 months in jail and fined $10,000 for tried wire fraud. As half of her plea deal, she reportedly admitted, regardless of not being charged, that she tried to bribe two native officers “for favorable cannabis legislation.”
Newsom’s workplace didn’t offer a responsive reply to a request for touch upon Rafiei.
Mark Ridley-Thomas
In 2019, Newsom tapped Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas as one of two heads on the governor’s “advisory team” on homelessness.
LA City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas was indicted for allegedly promising profitable contracts to a former USC dean in exchange for giving his son a scholarship and professorship. Los Angeles Times through Getty Imag
But in 2021, Ridley-Thomas was pressured out of his L.A. place after he was indicted on federal corruption costs. Two years later, he was sentenced to 42 months in federal jail for a bribery and fraud scheme.
Victor Makras and Harlan Kelly
In 2010 Newsom appointed Victor Makras to the San Francisco Retirement Board. Three years earlier, Makras’s company had made a legal $5,000 fee at Newsom’s request to fund the mayoral swearing-in ceremony.
More than a decade after that appointment, Makras was convicted of bank fraud and making false statements to a bank. The courtroom slapped him with three years of probation and a $15,200 nice for his function in fraudulently acquiring a $1.3 million loan.
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Harlan Kelly Jr., a “high-ranking official” within the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission underneath Mayor Newsom, was a co-conspirator in that scheme.
In 2024, Kelly was sentenced to 4 years in jail after being convicted of bank fraud and different fraud-related costs, which reportedly “grew out of a years-long investigation into bribery and public corruption in San Francisco city government.”
Newsom’s workplace didn’t offer a responsive reply to a request for touch upon Makras and Kelly.
Rodrigo Santos
In 2004, Newsom promoted Rodrigo Santos, a native of Ecuador who turned a prolific donor to San Francisco political figures, to function the president of the town’s Building Inspection Commission.
Between 2012 and 2019, Santos defrauded shoppers out of $775,000. In 2023, Santos was sentenced to 30 months in jail for bank fraud, sincere providers fraud, falsifying data, and tax evasion.
Newsom’s workplace didn’t offer a responsive reply to a request for touch upon Santos.
Rudolph Dwayne Jones
From 2004 by means of 2010, Rudolph Dwayne Jones served as Gavin Newsom’s deputy chief of employees. He functioned in numerous roles, together with as a marketing consultant to teams in search of metropolis contracts.
In 2023, metropolis officers charged Jones with bribery, misappropriation of public funds, and aiding and abetting financial conflicts of curiosity. Officials reportedly accused Jones of bribing one other since-indicted official, Lanita Henriquez, to “steer City contracts and grants towards Jones and the entities he controls.”
Jones and Henriquez have pleaded not guilty and are apparently awaiting trial.
Newsom faces issues of his own. A state ethics physique just lately fined him for failing promptly to report 36 behested funds — charitable donations made at a authorities official’s request. The governor has behested tens of millions to his spouse’s nonprofit.
We reached out to Newsom’s workplace for remark. In response, an official accused us of “stitching together decades-old connections to manufacture a make-believe scandal” and prompt that we focus as a substitute on “President Trump’s corruption.”
Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the writer of America’s Cultural Revolution.Jedd McFatter is a researcher with the Government Accountability Institute and Susan Crabtree is national correspondent at RealClearPolitics; each are coauthors of Fool’s Gold.
