November 14, 2025 • 32 mins
Lou opens the hour with the bombshell arrest of Dana Williamson, former Chief of Staff to Governor Newsom. He’s joined by KFI News Director Jayson Campadonia to walk through how Williamson got caught, why she’s now the “former” Chief of Staff, and what this corruption case means for Newsom’s future and the 2028 political landscape. Lou reflects on his own experience as Chief of Staff and questions the hiring practices that enabled this to happen.
Lou continues by digging into the broader network of co-conspirators and how this scandal has blown the Governor’s race wide open, even down to Williamson’s courthouse comments that sounded straight out of an SNL skit. He closes the hour by shifting to California’s uncertain political future and the national ripple effect of ending the penny — including how major retailers like Walmart and McDonald’s are now seeking federal guidance on rounding prices in a post-penny world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
B Lou Penrose, good to have you along with us.
There is no other word but bombshell for the story.
This is a political bombshell. There is no way that
the chief of staff of the governor can engage or
at least alleged to be engaged in these kinds of
(00:27):
transgressions and other staffers not be aware. Talking of course,
about the arrest of Dana Williamson FBI investigation under the
Biden administration, for all kinds of problems with respect to
campaign accounts and moving moneies around. Joining us here is
(00:50):
a Jason Cappedonia. He is with the KFI newsroom. Jason,
it seems like new information is dripping out, which is bad,
the fact that somebody this close to the governor could
be accused of something, and not one accusation, twenty three counts.
And then we learned six hours later that Newsom knew
that she was under investigation, which is the reason why
he dismissed her. That's why she's the former chief of staff.
(01:12):
Otherwise she'd still be the chief of staff.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
What's funny about that is that when she left, he
actually posted on as that you know, she will be missed,
and she has a big heart, and he you know,
appreciated her, her insight and her knowledge and things like that.
So it was definitely a smoke and mirror's issue. And
when news broke yesterday of this of this person that
(01:35):
you know, being arrested and facing all of these counts,
I reached out to Newsom's people. They came back to
me very quickly, totally denying any involvement. Newsom's not mentioned
in the indictment. She's been gone since twenty twenty four.
I had nothing to.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Do with it.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And then about a half an hour later I got
another email from the Newsom administration saying, oh, by the way,
just to let you know, we let her go as
soon as we got with of the federal indictment.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Right here you go. That's the drip drip that I'm
talking about, right, and which means that in six more
hours you'll get another email right to me. I mean,
that's that's I mean, that's the conclusion you have to draw.
Because Okay, so just to put this in perspective, I've
worked for three members of Congress at high level deputy
chief of staff. I understand how this works with respect
(02:27):
to the separation between official business and campaign business. Dana
Williamson worked for Newsom, worked for Jerry Brown, and also
served in the Great Davis administration. She is a lifer.
She understands the rules. She did not wake up in
twenty twenty two and decide I'm going to you know,
(02:47):
steal two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars ten thousand
dollars at a time. So either she had been she
this is just based on what I see in life
and in that industry. Either she was crooked or something.
All else is going on. There are more people involved.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Oh absolutely, And I think what we're going to find
out here is that newsome one knew about it and
then decided to, you know, try to distance himself from
it very quickly. And you know, the FEDS could say, hey,
you knew more than what you've alleged in some of
the documents, because I'm sure they've had to have talked
(03:23):
to him an investigation this big, They've had to have
gotten a hold of him and other people in the
office at the time and things like that, so you know,
because they're they're not going to do this big display
of enforcement if they don't have anything to solid to
go on. And it really is interesting because the way
that it's very complicated how they were funneling funds away
(03:47):
from this dormant campaign account that they had access to
for Javier Bessera.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
It you know, it's got to go through.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
This channel, than that channel, than this channel, than back
to that channel, and then circle back around to another
channel into an account that now I control, and that's
how they were siphoning the money. But I mean, the
flow chart of the actual indict the papers from the
indictment really go into detail and it's it's mind boggling
how anybody can keep any of this straight.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Let's talk about Bessera for a second, because the other
another co conspirator was the chief of staff to Bessera,
and Bessara was ag you attorney general. So I mean,
these are people with train staff on how to keep
a wall of separation between official conduct, and a chief
(04:36):
of staff would be on the official side. The chief
of staff is paid for by the taxpayer. Campaign is different.
You've got to be very cautious of that. And as
a former federal employee that worked on both sides, you
are well aware and you're highly trained, and it is
just I mean the rule, right, you don't even take
a chance. So these people knew, they knew what to
(04:58):
do and what not to do, and that it was
Besarah's account is curious to me because of course the
question is going to go to him. How could you
not know? Right? So what do you mean adormant account?
You know that you have accounts.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Open, especially with two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.
It's not fifty bucks in a checking account that I
forgot about.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
This is this is a quarter of a million dollars
and that can be used me by the way, being
drained by at a rate of ten thousand dollars a month. Right,
so you have to know this. You get quarterly statements.
I mean, you can't be that aloof and if you are,
then it calls him to question his judgment. That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
And you know, the public perception of this is that
it really takes the wind out of the sales for
the Democrats, having just one on Prop fifty here in California.
So it is kind of one of those conspiracy theorists
as well. Okay, so who flipped or who flipped who?
Or who who tattled on who on the along the
chain of of command there, because it looks like a
(06:03):
lot of people knew about this. It's just there. They've
got enough evidence to convict the three on the federal charges. Well, look,
it's going to be a battle royale.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
But the question now becomes who benefits from this, because honestly,
the race to replace Gavin Newsom is now wide open
yet again. I mean, you had Kamala Harris, she was out,
the lieutenant governor with the unpronounceable name she was in.
Now she's out. Tony Atkins out of San Diego. She
was the Speaker of the Assembly and Senate pro temp.
(06:35):
She drops out. So and then Katie Porter has a meltdown.
Now Besarah's got problem, bad headline. Yeah, yeah, it's wide open.
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
The latest that I'm seeing is that Eric Swalwell really
wants to throw his name into the ring and try
and make a run at it. He's Democrat, he's got
some name recognition, He's got a pretty good chance. NBC
News is talking about that. That's that's probably the guy.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That's swallow will jump in. Now, well, i mean it's
wide open, but it's even if he jumps in. Now
he is jumping in because the Democrat bench is self destructing.
I mean I've read somewhere somebody likened it to the
drummer and spinal top. They just seem to explode over
and over and over again. So everybody that's in the
(07:22):
lean on the Democrat side for the governor of California.
I mean, it's just the it is the plumb of
Democrat politics to be the governor of the largest state,
right and everybody that sits on that stool just explodes
like a spinal tap drummer.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And then the national implications here really could hurt Newsome.
You know, if if you look at it from a
whole the flyover states, they'll probably nail him on homelessness
and the budget and things like that. But now you've
got actual corruption happening within his office and under his nose.
And just like you said before, you can't tell me
(07:57):
that he didn't know something fishy was going on. And
he may not have been directly involved, he may not
have been in the room when the transactions were happening,
but you can't tell me he didn't know. It's just
like show, Hey, Otani didn't bet on sports?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, okay, yeah they have. I mean certainly other staffers know.
All right, drip drip, let us know if you get
yet another email any sooner than six hours. KFI is
Jason Campadonia. Thanks so much. I appreciate you. Thank you.
All right, So when we come back, let's talk about
now the race for governor being blown wide open and
(08:32):
what Williamson said today coming out of the courtroom. That's
all coming up next. Lou Penrose on KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the Iheartradioact.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Talking about this just bombshell of a story, the former
chief of staff of Governor Gavin Newsom being nailed by
the FBI. So this is kind of an inside baseball story.
And what even further complicates it is it is it's
against the law, but it really isn't a violation of
(09:10):
the public trust because what she was doing, what she's
accused of doing, somebody did it was drain campaign donations
out of a campaign account to enrich in somebody. So
it's like it's less insulting to the taxpayer because it
wasn't taxpayer. It's it's still wrong so you still can't
(09:32):
do it. It's still crime. She could do jail time
for it. So it does speak to a corruption, but
a different kind of corruption, And it does go further
than that, because when you hire somebody and that somebody
engages in this kind of activity, it calls into question
(09:55):
the judgment of the person that does the hiring. Now
you know a CFO and Bezel's money from a corporation,
is the CEO who hired the CFO responsible a little bit, right,
And she was in Sacramento for a long time serving
in these high profile roles. Chief of staff is the
highest level. They're the chief of the whole staff. They
(10:18):
hire the whole staff for the governor, and they're responsible
for a lot of things. They usually aren't as involved
on the fundraising side. That's what makes this curious. Let
me explain to you how this works, and then you'll
be smart and you'll be able to explain it to
everybody else. In politics, there are two worlds and those
(10:40):
worlds cannot meet, kind of a George Costanza thing. If
the world's collide, they'll explode and somebody will go to jail.
There is the official side of an elected official and
there's the campaign side of an elected official, and staff
can't cross the monies can't cross. It has to be
(11:03):
very separate. When I worked in Congress, serving as deputy
chief of staff with free members of Congress here in California,
you had literally two devices. We didn't have iPhones, then
we had blackberries, but you had two blackberries. You had
an official BlackBerry that was paid for by the taxpayer,
and you had a campaign BlackBerry that was paid for
(11:26):
by campaign funds. Because you could not use your official
taxpayer paid for equipment to do campaign work, which is
right and proper, and everything was separate, and we were,
I mean, it was drilled on us that. I mean,
you do not respond to a campaign related email. You
(11:48):
don't pick up the phone in official business office. If
you're in an office that's the rent is paid for
by the taxpayer, you don't pick up a telephone call
on that campaign phone. And good lawmakers trained good staff
to obey that rule, because you shouldn't be doing campaign
work on the taxpayer's dime, even if it's just responding
(12:11):
to a quick email about a scheduled event. So these
people in question here, these quote unquote co conspirators, they
all know the rules. They absolutely know the rules. They
could not have survived in politics in Sacramento this long
without not only knowing the rules, have taught the rules
(12:33):
to their staff. So that then raises the question what
was the culture in the office that this was able
to go on? Because, as I said, this individual and
I don't know her, but I understand she's a big
deal up in Sacramento. Dana Williamson had worked for as
chief of staff for Newsom, but also served Jerry Brown,
(12:56):
and not at the highest level, but in the Davis administration.
So she'd been around for a long time. And the
rules pretty much haven't changed with respect to how you'd
keep two bank accounts and two worlds separate. There are
campaign offices and there are official offices, different staff, different computers,
(13:18):
different email addresses, and yeah, different devices. So one of
two things clearly was going on. Either she has been
a cuiped for a long time or something new happened. Also,
(13:42):
it is fair to critique. Certainly Besserah, like Newsome, could
easily say, look, I heard that she was under investigation.
As soon as I heard she was under investigation, I
dismissed her. She was fired and I'm just sad like
he can keep at arms length way until we find
out more. But I don't give that grace to Bisarah.
(14:04):
How can you not know that you are in possession
of a campaign account with two hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars in it, and then all of a sudden,
in that campaign account, somebody was either hired or appointed
to oversee the campaign account in exchange for a ten
thousand dollars a month consulting fee, and he wasn't raising
(14:28):
money into the account. So clearly that account would be
drained at a ten thousand dollars distribution clip every month,
So somebody was drinting his money. So you can't miss that.
How can you miss that? So I think Bissarah is
the one that pays the real price here because he's
(14:48):
a candidate for governor and the hit is clear. Either
you knew that money was being funneled out of one
of your campaign accounts to benefit somebody and you were
okay with it, in which case that's a little shady
(15:08):
and you're unfit to be governor and you're out, or
you didn't know that you one of your campaign accounts
was losing ten thousand dollars a month that you didn't
approve of, in which case you're an idiot and unfit
to be governor and you're out. Either way, you're out.
(15:29):
So this blows the race wide open. I mean, there
is literally literally nobody who is the heir parent to
Gavin Newsom, and I am just shocked. Democrats in California
are way better at this than Republicans. They are way
better at getting a bench going. Right. Every single state
assembly member that's a Democrat has somebody on their staff
(15:52):
that is either on a local school board or on
a city council in the district, or is on the
planning commission for the city in the district. And then
they're going to move up. And when that state assembly
member who's a Democrat becomes the state Senator, than that
person who's on the planning commission or on the school board,
then they run. They become the assembly member, and then
(16:13):
when that state senator is turned out, they're going to
run for you know, a statewide office, treasurer, attorney general, whatever,
and then and Democrats have a great plan always in
place to move Democrats up the chain. And here we
have the governor's race wide open, and nobody even close.
(16:35):
Lou Penrose on KFI AM six forty Live Everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
What a story. Always got to have a scandal, and
there is a This is going to be a big one.
We'll see if Newsom has more to say. When he
fired the chief of staff, he went on social media
and said, I greatly appreciate Dana's council and our service
to the state and the people of California over the
last two years. Her insight, tenacity and big art will
(17:06):
be missed. So he wrote that knowing that she was
under FBI investigation in the Biden administration. So I don't
know that the reporters have done asking him questions. Here
is Gil Durant. He is a colleague of this individual,
(17:28):
worked with her in previous administrations.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Dana has a reputation for being reckless, for being irresponsible,
and for being a bully. She was somebody who loved
power and loved to abuse power often. If you look
at some of the indictment, she's talking about getting people fired,
you know, laughing and calling people's names.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
This is very much how she was. And Wow, that's
tough stuff. So this is what's going to happen, because
realize it's Democrat on Democrat now to win that governor seat.
This is gonna get interesting. I think we're not done
yet seeing names jump in. I'm not sure Swawell has
got his own portfolio of problems back in Washington, and
(18:13):
I just think it's wide open. So I think that
we are. We'd yet to hear the last candidate enter
into this race. I still have my money on Alex Spadilla.
I know on election Day, Senator Alex Padilla said that
he is not running for governor. Maybe this will be
the reason he changes his mind that now Riverside County
(18:36):
Sheriff Chad Bianco is on top in the latest polling.
He is the favorite. Now he's the favorite, like we're
thirteen percent, forty four percent of likely voters undecided. But nevertheless,
it matters not where the numbers are in politics. It
only matters that the direction the numbers are going. And
(18:59):
Bianco was leading the pack because Democrats are imploding. So
does Pidia change his mind and decide that he's no
longer interested in being in the minority in the United
States Senate and come back and run for governor. I
think the race is wide open. But yeah, she was
characterized as a real tough cookie as chief of staff,
(19:23):
but had a very interesting answer. She only said one
thing leaving the courthouse. Uh, they were asking you all
kinds of questions, shouting questions at her, and she only
said one thing. Do you have any common missile in.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Some excuse us? You know you can keep protact may
Atturtiam excuse us.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I don't know if you could hear that, but it
it really caught my ear. Not so much what she said.
She said, you guys will have to talk to my attorney,
and that was the only statement she made, but it
was how she said it that really caught my ear.
Contact mattur team. She literally had an almost co Southern
(20:01):
Californian affectation. Listen to it again, like it almost sounded
like a sorority girl from SDSU in San Diego had
that that level of an affectation. And all I could
think about was the Californians on Saturday Night Live. It
(20:26):
was so weird, and everyone's talking about how tough she is.
She's a real, uh, you know, a tough cookie up
there in Sacramento she's you know, a hard nosed and
uh iron rules with an iron fist and sounds like
a valley girl. You have to talk to my attorney.
So classic, that's all. And and now that when I
(20:49):
look at her, even though coming down those stairs, she
looked like Khalid Sheik Mohammed with the old stretched out
white T shirt. I don't know what happened. Maybe they
pulled her. Uh, she didn't have a chance to get
her self the other there. But she looked like hell
coming down the stairs. I mean she big stretched neck,
white T shirt and I think like a gray hoodie,
(21:09):
zip up hoodie. But you're not having a good day,
There's no question about it. But the affectation was just
too rich to avoid. The Koreana.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
My publisher just sent me a box of my new book,
Look Classic Burger Joints in California.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Sure the photography and this is a yawsong.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
He's an orange filter.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, that's it. That's the affectation, my attorney. Very strange,
very strange story. All right, Well, we'll see where this
leads to. And as I said that the story is
coming out a little bit at a time, suggests to
me that there is more here. It is amazing that
(21:53):
there is no Democrat that is clearly the front runner
for the governor of California, a state this big that's
controlled by Democrats, and it is such a plumb job
for a Democrat that has national aspirations and they have
no bench. They spent all their time engaging in Trump
(22:18):
arrangement syndrome that they forgot that they need somebody to
be governor. Have to Newsom's out and he hasn't really
tapped anybody. There is no He was never close to
the Lieutenant governor. I don't think I've ever seen a
photograph of them together, the lieutenant governor and former Vice
(22:38):
President Kamala Harris. They were friends, which was interesting because
the first person to open up a campaign account was
the lieutenant governor with the unpronounceable name. And then everybody
was waiting for Kamala Harris to make a decision, and
all of a sudden, everybody just bowed out and no
one's there. I still think I Padia is going to
(23:01):
come back. I really do. I think that Padilla hates
being in the Senate. If you think about it, California
Democrats are not used to being in the minority and
it's no fun being in the minority. California Democrats like
being in the majority, especially when they have a super majority.
So you go back to DC and you are completely inconsequential.
(23:22):
You vote know all day. He seems unhappy. There's no
math that suggests that Democrats are going to pick up
the Senate anytime soon. So he's going to be in
the minority like for a long time. When it's wide open.
He could easily come back to California, run for governor, win,
and be governor. And my prediction is, should he do that,
(23:46):
he will run for governor, win, vacate his Senate seat,
and in California, the governor can do two things. He
can call a special election for the remainder of his
Senate seat in forty five days, or the governor can
appoint somebody to serve out the Senate seat. My prediction
was and still is kind of that he will do that.
(24:10):
Padilla will be governor. He will appoint Newsom to serve
out the remainder of the Senate term. Newsom will accept,
but make it very clear that he will not run
for reelection. He's only there to fulfill the goals and
work that is good friend, Senator Alex Badilla started, and
(24:33):
that will give Newsom a two year separation from California
and a national profile, which is what he needs. He
needs to get out of California if he wants to
have any juice on the national stage, he can't. He
has to be disassociated with California. Otherwise his opponents will
(24:54):
We'll just get some b roll of downtown San Francisco
or downtown Los Angeles, and when you go into the
Iowa caucus is they'll put it on TV and they'll say,
do you want America to look like this? So he
needs separation. That will give him two years, and in
politics that's a lifetime, so two year separation and then
he will be a national player. So that that works
(25:17):
for the both of them. But at this point Bedilla
says he's staying in the Senate and Newson will have
nowhere to go and there is nobody in line to
be governor of California. Amazing. Louke Penrose on KFI AM
six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
If a Democrat and threaten to kill a fellow politician,
and his entire family and still get elected. I think
this thing by Besserah is a lot less serious, and
he's got a D by his name, so he can
get it with anything he wants.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I appreciate the call, it doesn't help. It's not a
good headline for either Bissara or Newsome. You know, a
tough cookie or bully. Things that she has in common
with Katie Porter bully, condescending, degrading, and oh not so
hot by the way, Oh you're not supposed to say
those kinds of things. Look, that's the core constituency of
(26:23):
the California Democrat Party right now, like bossy, mean people bitter,
so in many respects, Katie Porter is a perfect representative
of the core of the California Democratic Party. But she's gone,
(26:44):
that's over. There's no recovering from that. Nobody needs that,
and that's just it's unbecoming like Besarah's. The problem now
for Bessara is answering the question how could you not
know that a campaign account? First off, what does a
dormant campaign account mean to the average person? Does the
(27:06):
average person working out there have dormant checking accounts or
dormant savings accounts? So it's a it's just frankly unbelievable
that you have a quarter of a million dollars in
donor funds sitting around and you were unaware that it
was being siphoned off by somebody who isn't even on
your staff, somebody that works for the governor. So he's
(27:28):
gonna have a hard time explaining that. No word yet
from Besarah, but I think this is it. I mean this,
it's very hard to recover from this. I think they're both.
I think Katie Porter's done, Besara's done, and somebody's gonna
have to jump in, but it remains to be seen.
I appreciate the call, all right. Coming up following the
(27:50):
news at eight, the government shutdown was ended and the
continuing Resolution was signed and everybody will get their retroactive
pay on Saturday. And I understand some TSA agents that
did not call out sick got a ten thousand dollars
(28:12):
bonus check today, So everybody's made whole. Some people got
bonus checks. Everything's fine, it'll all be fine, and everything's
back in order. But another thing took place at the
federal government that is really astounding to me, and that
is the last penny was stamped. They stamped the last
(28:32):
penny was officially minted, and now the mint is no
longer minting any more pennies. And it's incredible because this
just typifies why government is stupid. It took all this time.
The US government, you and I the taxpayer, have been
losing not millions, tens of millions of dollars for years
(28:56):
making a coin that costs for times to make. Then
it's worth the penny represents one cent, and it costs
almost four cents to produce. And for years people have
been saying, you know, we should probably stop doing this.
You know, we're running a deficit, there's a national debt.
(29:19):
Let's you know, cut where we can and for you.
I remember there was something in the nineties called the
Coin Coalition in Washington, and then they wanted to stop
at the penny. They wanted to stop at the penny
and mint a dollar coin. It was always a hard time.
The biggest problem with the dollar coin was not the
dollar coin. The dollar coin made cent like it made.
(29:41):
It was logical right paper money and coins of meat
right at the dollar, so it did make. It made
a lot of sense. No pun intended. The biggest problem
with the dollar coin was nobody could decide on whose
face goes on the front. There was this huge woke
fight for years, do we get Saka Juea? Is it
(30:04):
Susan b Anthony? We got to get a woman. They
fought for years on who's face goes on the dollar coin?
And for years they never had the dollar coin, and
so they never phased out the penny when they knew
they were gonna start losing money very very quickly. So
eighty five million dollars was lost in twenty twenty four
(30:26):
alone making pennies because nobody could stop it from happening.
It eluded the Clinton administration, it eluded eight years of
George W. Bush, eight years of Obama. Nobody could get
that penny like out of production even though we were
losing money. It eluded the first Trump administration and the
(30:50):
Biden administration, and finally yesterday they stopped making the penny.
Now everybody's concerned about how are we going to round
up and how are we gonna round down? Discussing this
thing for almost thirty five years, but now everybody's worried
about rounding up or rounding down. And I guess Walmart
and McDonald's have asked the Justice Department for some kind
(31:15):
of directions so that they don't get involved in a
class action lawsuit. They're concerned that they're not going to
be able to issue change, and so in lieu of
exact change though around one way or another, and depending
on where you are, you'll either save money or lose
money a couple of pennies at a time by the rounding.
(31:38):
Now you should come out even and Walmart should come
out even over time, but there is going to be
some class action lawsuit filed. You better believe it. You
know that somebody's going to sue Starbucks on behalf of
the entire state of California because people went in and
to go by and didn't get exact change. And it's
(31:59):
the penny's ball. So we will explore this because there's
other aspects of this besides the whole rounding thing. It
changes the whole ninety nine, Like every single thing on
the menu at McDonald's ends in ninety nine or eighty
nine or seventy nine. So will they drop all their
prices to four to ninety five or will they just
(32:22):
end with the whole charade of ninety nine and make
it a clear five dollars and how does that change
the marketing? So interesting stuff. We'll talk about the end
of the penny next. Lou Penrose on KFI AM six
forty live everywhere, on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1 (32:39):
KFI AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
B Lou Penrose, good to have you along with us.
There is no other word but bombshell for the story.
This is a political bombshell. There is no way that
the chief of staff of the governor can engage or
at least alleged to be engaged in these kinds of
(00:27):
transgressions and other staffers not be aware. Talking of course,
about the arrest of Dana Williamson FBI investigation under the
Biden administration, for all kinds of problems with respect to
campaign accounts and moving moneies around. Joining us here is
(00:50):
a Jason Cappedonia. He is with the KFI newsroom. Jason,
it seems like new information is dripping out, which is bad,
the fact that somebody this close to the governor could
be accused of something, and not one accusation, twenty three counts.
And then we learned six hours later that Newsom knew
that she was under investigation, which is the reason why
he dismissed her. That's why she's the former chief of staff.
(01:12):
Otherwise she'd still be the chief of staff.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
What's funny about that is that when she left, he
actually posted on as that you know, she will be missed,
and she has a big heart, and he you know,
appreciated her, her insight and her knowledge and things like that.
So it was definitely a smoke and mirror's issue. And
when news broke yesterday of this of this person that
(01:35):
you know, being arrested and facing all of these counts,
I reached out to Newsom's people. They came back to
me very quickly, totally denying any involvement. Newsom's not mentioned
in the indictment. She's been gone since twenty twenty four.
I had nothing to.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Do with it.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And then about a half an hour later I got
another email from the Newsom administration saying, oh, by the way,
just to let you know, we let her go as
soon as we got with of the federal indictment.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Right here you go. That's the drip drip that I'm
talking about, right, and which means that in six more
hours you'll get another email right to me. I mean,
that's that's I mean, that's the conclusion you have to draw.
Because Okay, so just to put this in perspective, I've
worked for three members of Congress at high level deputy
chief of staff. I understand how this works with respect
(02:27):
to the separation between official business and campaign business. Dana
Williamson worked for Newsom, worked for Jerry Brown, and also
served in the Great Davis administration. She is a lifer.
She understands the rules. She did not wake up in
twenty twenty two and decide I'm going to you know,
(02:47):
steal two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars ten thousand
dollars at a time. So either she had been she
this is just based on what I see in life
and in that industry. Either she was crooked or something.
All else is going on. There are more people involved.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Oh absolutely, And I think what we're going to find
out here is that newsome one knew about it and
then decided to, you know, try to distance himself from
it very quickly. And you know, the FEDS could say, hey,
you knew more than what you've alleged in some of
the documents, because I'm sure they've had to have talked
(03:23):
to him an investigation this big, They've had to have
gotten a hold of him and other people in the
office at the time and things like that, so you know,
because they're they're not going to do this big display
of enforcement if they don't have anything to solid to
go on. And it really is interesting because the way
that it's very complicated how they were funneling funds away
(03:47):
from this dormant campaign account that they had access to
for Javier Bessera.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
It you know, it's got to go through.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
This channel, than that channel, than this channel, than back
to that channel, and then circle back around to another
channel into an account that now I control, and that's
how they were siphoning the money. But I mean, the
flow chart of the actual indict the papers from the
indictment really go into detail and it's it's mind boggling
how anybody can keep any of this straight.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Let's talk about Bessera for a second, because the other
another co conspirator was the chief of staff to Bessera,
and Bessara was ag you attorney general. So I mean,
these are people with train staff on how to keep
a wall of separation between official conduct, and a chief
(04:36):
of staff would be on the official side. The chief
of staff is paid for by the taxpayer. Campaign is different.
You've got to be very cautious of that. And as
a former federal employee that worked on both sides, you
are well aware and you're highly trained, and it is
just I mean the rule, right, you don't even take
a chance. So these people knew, they knew what to
(04:58):
do and what not to do, and that it was
Besarah's account is curious to me because of course the
question is going to go to him. How could you
not know? Right? So what do you mean adormant account?
You know that you have accounts.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Open, especially with two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.
It's not fifty bucks in a checking account that I
forgot about.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
This is this is a quarter of a million dollars
and that can be used me by the way, being
drained by at a rate of ten thousand dollars a month. Right,
so you have to know this. You get quarterly statements.
I mean, you can't be that aloof and if you are,
then it calls him to question his judgment. That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
And you know, the public perception of this is that
it really takes the wind out of the sales for
the Democrats, having just one on Prop fifty here in California.
So it is kind of one of those conspiracy theorists
as well. Okay, so who flipped or who flipped who?
Or who who tattled on who on the along the
chain of of command there, because it looks like a
(06:03):
lot of people knew about this. It's just there. They've
got enough evidence to convict the three on the federal charges. Well, look,
it's going to be a battle royale.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
But the question now becomes who benefits from this, because honestly,
the race to replace Gavin Newsom is now wide open
yet again. I mean, you had Kamala Harris, she was out,
the lieutenant governor with the unpronounceable name she was in.
Now she's out. Tony Atkins out of San Diego. She
was the Speaker of the Assembly and Senate pro temp.
(06:35):
She drops out. So and then Katie Porter has a meltdown.
Now Besarah's got problem, bad headline. Yeah, yeah, it's wide open.
You know.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
The latest that I'm seeing is that Eric Swalwell really
wants to throw his name into the ring and try
and make a run at it. He's Democrat, he's got
some name recognition, He's got a pretty good chance. NBC
News is talking about that. That's that's probably the guy.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That's swallow will jump in. Now, well, i mean it's
wide open, but it's even if he jumps in. Now
he is jumping in because the Democrat bench is self destructing.
I mean I've read somewhere somebody likened it to the
drummer and spinal top. They just seem to explode over
and over and over again. So everybody that's in the
(07:22):
lean on the Democrat side for the governor of California.
I mean, it's just the it is the plumb of
Democrat politics to be the governor of the largest state,
right and everybody that sits on that stool just explodes
like a spinal tap drummer.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And then the national implications here really could hurt Newsome.
You know, if if you look at it from a
whole the flyover states, they'll probably nail him on homelessness
and the budget and things like that. But now you've
got actual corruption happening within his office and under his nose.
And just like you said before, you can't tell me
(07:57):
that he didn't know something fishy was going on. And
he may not have been directly involved, he may not
have been in the room when the transactions were happening,
but you can't tell me he didn't know. It's just
like show, Hey, Otani didn't bet on sports?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, okay, yeah they have. I mean certainly other staffers know.
All right, drip drip, let us know if you get
yet another email any sooner than six hours. KFI is
Jason Campadonia. Thanks so much. I appreciate you. Thank you.
All right, So when we come back, let's talk about
now the race for governor being blown wide open and
(08:32):
what Williamson said today coming out of the courtroom. That's
all coming up next. Lou Penrose on KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the Iheartradioact.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Talking about this just bombshell of a story, the former
chief of staff of Governor Gavin Newsom being nailed by
the FBI. So this is kind of an inside baseball story.
And what even further complicates it is it is it's
against the law, but it really isn't a violation of
(09:10):
the public trust because what she was doing, what she's
accused of doing, somebody did it was drain campaign donations
out of a campaign account to enrich in somebody. So
it's like it's less insulting to the taxpayer because it
wasn't taxpayer. It's it's still wrong so you still can't
(09:32):
do it. It's still crime. She could do jail time
for it. So it does speak to a corruption, but
a different kind of corruption, And it does go further
than that, because when you hire somebody and that somebody
engages in this kind of activity, it calls into question
(09:55):
the judgment of the person that does the hiring. Now
you know a CFO and Bezel's money from a corporation,
is the CEO who hired the CFO responsible a little bit, right,
And she was in Sacramento for a long time serving
in these high profile roles. Chief of staff is the
highest level. They're the chief of the whole staff. They
(10:18):
hire the whole staff for the governor, and they're responsible
for a lot of things. They usually aren't as involved
on the fundraising side. That's what makes this curious. Let
me explain to you how this works, and then you'll
be smart and you'll be able to explain it to
everybody else. In politics, there are two worlds and those
(10:40):
worlds cannot meet, kind of a George Costanza thing. If
the world's collide, they'll explode and somebody will go to jail.
There is the official side of an elected official and
there's the campaign side of an elected official, and staff
can't cross the monies can't cross. It has to be
(11:03):
very separate. When I worked in Congress, serving as deputy
chief of staff with free members of Congress here in California,
you had literally two devices. We didn't have iPhones, then
we had blackberries, but you had two blackberries. You had
an official BlackBerry that was paid for by the taxpayer,
and you had a campaign BlackBerry that was paid for
(11:26):
by campaign funds. Because you could not use your official
taxpayer paid for equipment to do campaign work, which is
right and proper, and everything was separate, and we were,
I mean, it was drilled on us that. I mean,
you do not respond to a campaign related email. You
(11:48):
don't pick up the phone in official business office. If
you're in an office that's the rent is paid for
by the taxpayer, you don't pick up a telephone call
on that campaign phone. And good lawmakers trained good staff
to obey that rule, because you shouldn't be doing campaign
work on the taxpayer's dime, even if it's just responding
(12:11):
to a quick email about a scheduled event. So these
people in question here, these quote unquote co conspirators, they
all know the rules. They absolutely know the rules. They
could not have survived in politics in Sacramento this long
without not only knowing the rules, have taught the rules
(12:33):
to their staff. So that then raises the question what
was the culture in the office that this was able
to go on? Because, as I said, this individual and
I don't know her, but I understand she's a big
deal up in Sacramento. Dana Williamson had worked for as
chief of staff for Newsom, but also served Jerry Brown,
(12:56):
and not at the highest level, but in the Davis administration.
So she'd been around for a long time. And the
rules pretty much haven't changed with respect to how you'd
keep two bank accounts and two worlds separate. There are
campaign offices and there are official offices, different staff, different computers,
(13:18):
different email addresses, and yeah, different devices. So one of
two things clearly was going on. Either she has been
a cuiped for a long time or something new happened. Also,
(13:42):
it is fair to critique. Certainly Besserah, like Newsome, could
easily say, look, I heard that she was under investigation.
As soon as I heard she was under investigation, I
dismissed her. She was fired and I'm just sad like
he can keep at arms length way until we find
out more. But I don't give that grace to Bisarah.
(14:04):
How can you not know that you are in possession
of a campaign account with two hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars in it, and then all of a sudden,
in that campaign account, somebody was either hired or appointed
to oversee the campaign account in exchange for a ten
thousand dollars a month consulting fee, and he wasn't raising
(14:28):
money into the account. So clearly that account would be
drained at a ten thousand dollars distribution clip every month,
So somebody was drinting his money. So you can't miss that.
How can you miss that? So I think Bissarah is
the one that pays the real price here because he's
(14:48):
a candidate for governor and the hit is clear. Either
you knew that money was being funneled out of one
of your campaign accounts to benefit somebody and you were
okay with it, in which case that's a little shady
(15:08):
and you're unfit to be governor and you're out, or
you didn't know that you one of your campaign accounts
was losing ten thousand dollars a month that you didn't
approve of, in which case you're an idiot and unfit
to be governor and you're out. Either way, you're out.
(15:29):
So this blows the race wide open. I mean, there
is literally literally nobody who is the heir parent to
Gavin Newsom, and I am just shocked. Democrats in California
are way better at this than Republicans. They are way
better at getting a bench going. Right. Every single state
assembly member that's a Democrat has somebody on their staff
(15:52):
that is either on a local school board or on
a city council in the district, or is on the
planning commission for the city in the district. And then
they're going to move up. And when that state assembly
member who's a Democrat becomes the state Senator, than that
person who's on the planning commission or on the school board,
then they run. They become the assembly member, and then
(16:13):
when that state senator is turned out, they're going to
run for you know, a statewide office, treasurer, attorney general, whatever,
and then and Democrats have a great plan always in
place to move Democrats up the chain. And here we
have the governor's race wide open, and nobody even close.
(16:35):
Lou Penrose on KFI AM six forty Live Everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
What a story. Always got to have a scandal, and
there is a This is going to be a big one.
We'll see if Newsom has more to say. When he
fired the chief of staff, he went on social media
and said, I greatly appreciate Dana's council and our service
to the state and the people of California over the
last two years. Her insight, tenacity and big art will
(17:06):
be missed. So he wrote that knowing that she was
under FBI investigation in the Biden administration. So I don't
know that the reporters have done asking him questions. Here
is Gil Durant. He is a colleague of this individual,
(17:28):
worked with her in previous administrations.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Dana has a reputation for being reckless, for being irresponsible,
and for being a bully. She was somebody who loved
power and loved to abuse power often. If you look
at some of the indictment, she's talking about getting people fired,
you know, laughing and calling people's names.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
This is very much how she was. And Wow, that's
tough stuff. So this is what's going to happen, because
realize it's Democrat on Democrat now to win that governor seat.
This is gonna get interesting. I think we're not done
yet seeing names jump in. I'm not sure Swawell has
got his own portfolio of problems back in Washington, and
(18:13):
I just think it's wide open. So I think that
we are. We'd yet to hear the last candidate enter
into this race. I still have my money on Alex Spadilla.
I know on election Day, Senator Alex Padilla said that
he is not running for governor. Maybe this will be
the reason he changes his mind that now Riverside County
(18:36):
Sheriff Chad Bianco is on top in the latest polling.
He is the favorite. Now he's the favorite, like we're
thirteen percent, forty four percent of likely voters undecided. But nevertheless,
it matters not where the numbers are in politics. It
only matters that the direction the numbers are going. And
(18:59):
Bianco was leading the pack because Democrats are imploding. So
does Pidia change his mind and decide that he's no
longer interested in being in the minority in the United
States Senate and come back and run for governor. I
think the race is wide open. But yeah, she was
characterized as a real tough cookie as chief of staff,
(19:23):
but had a very interesting answer. She only said one
thing leaving the courthouse. Uh, they were asking you all
kinds of questions, shouting questions at her, and she only
said one thing. Do you have any common missile in.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Some excuse us? You know you can keep protact may
Atturtiam excuse us.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I don't know if you could hear that, but it
it really caught my ear. Not so much what she said.
She said, you guys will have to talk to my attorney,
and that was the only statement she made, but it
was how she said it that really caught my ear.
Contact mattur team. She literally had an almost co Southern
(20:01):
Californian affectation. Listen to it again, like it almost sounded
like a sorority girl from SDSU in San Diego had
that that level of an affectation. And all I could
think about was the Californians on Saturday Night Live. It
(20:26):
was so weird, and everyone's talking about how tough she is.
She's a real, uh, you know, a tough cookie up
there in Sacramento she's you know, a hard nosed and
uh iron rules with an iron fist and sounds like
a valley girl. You have to talk to my attorney.
So classic, that's all. And and now that when I
(20:49):
look at her, even though coming down those stairs, she
looked like Khalid Sheik Mohammed with the old stretched out
white T shirt. I don't know what happened. Maybe they
pulled her. Uh, she didn't have a chance to get
her self the other there. But she looked like hell
coming down the stairs. I mean she big stretched neck,
white T shirt and I think like a gray hoodie,
(21:09):
zip up hoodie. But you're not having a good day,
There's no question about it. But the affectation was just
too rich to avoid. The Koreana.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
My publisher just sent me a box of my new book,
Look Classic Burger Joints in California.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Sure the photography and this is a yawsong.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
He's an orange filter.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, that's it. That's the affectation, my attorney. Very strange,
very strange story. All right, Well, we'll see where this
leads to. And as I said that the story is
coming out a little bit at a time, suggests to
me that there is more here. It is amazing that
(21:53):
there is no Democrat that is clearly the front runner
for the governor of California, a state this big that's
controlled by Democrats, and it is such a plumb job
for a Democrat that has national aspirations and they have
no bench. They spent all their time engaging in Trump
(22:18):
arrangement syndrome that they forgot that they need somebody to
be governor. Have to Newsom's out and he hasn't really
tapped anybody. There is no He was never close to
the Lieutenant governor. I don't think I've ever seen a
photograph of them together, the lieutenant governor and former Vice
(22:38):
President Kamala Harris. They were friends, which was interesting because
the first person to open up a campaign account was
the lieutenant governor with the unpronounceable name. And then everybody
was waiting for Kamala Harris to make a decision, and
all of a sudden, everybody just bowed out and no
one's there. I still think I Padia is going to
(23:01):
come back. I really do. I think that Padilla hates
being in the Senate. If you think about it, California
Democrats are not used to being in the minority and
it's no fun being in the minority. California Democrats like
being in the majority, especially when they have a super majority.
So you go back to DC and you are completely inconsequential.
(23:22):
You vote know all day. He seems unhappy. There's no
math that suggests that Democrats are going to pick up
the Senate anytime soon. So he's going to be in
the minority like for a long time. When it's wide open.
He could easily come back to California, run for governor, win,
and be governor. And my prediction is, should he do that,
(23:46):
he will run for governor, win, vacate his Senate seat,
and in California, the governor can do two things. He
can call a special election for the remainder of his
Senate seat in forty five days, or the governor can
appoint somebody to serve out the Senate seat. My prediction
was and still is kind of that he will do that.
(24:10):
Padilla will be governor. He will appoint Newsom to serve
out the remainder of the Senate term. Newsom will accept,
but make it very clear that he will not run
for reelection. He's only there to fulfill the goals and
work that is good friend, Senator Alex Badilla started, and
(24:33):
that will give Newsom a two year separation from California
and a national profile, which is what he needs. He
needs to get out of California if he wants to
have any juice on the national stage, he can't. He
has to be disassociated with California. Otherwise his opponents will
(24:54):
We'll just get some b roll of downtown San Francisco
or downtown Los Angeles, and when you go into the
Iowa caucus is they'll put it on TV and they'll say,
do you want America to look like this? So he
needs separation. That will give him two years, and in
politics that's a lifetime, so two year separation and then
he will be a national player. So that that works
(25:17):
for the both of them. But at this point Bedilla
says he's staying in the Senate and Newson will have
nowhere to go and there is nobody in line to
be governor of California. Amazing. Louke Penrose on KFI AM
six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
If a Democrat and threaten to kill a fellow politician,
and his entire family and still get elected. I think
this thing by Besserah is a lot less serious, and
he's got a D by his name, so he can
get it with anything he wants.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I appreciate the call, it doesn't help. It's not a
good headline for either Bissara or Newsome. You know, a
tough cookie or bully. Things that she has in common
with Katie Porter bully, condescending, degrading, and oh not so
hot by the way, Oh you're not supposed to say
those kinds of things. Look, that's the core constituency of
(26:23):
the California Democrat Party right now, like bossy, mean people bitter,
so in many respects, Katie Porter is a perfect representative
of the core of the California Democratic Party. But she's gone,
(26:44):
that's over. There's no recovering from that. Nobody needs that,
and that's just it's unbecoming like Besarah's. The problem now
for Bessara is answering the question how could you not
know that a campaign account? First off, what does a
dormant campaign account mean to the average person? Does the
(27:06):
average person working out there have dormant checking accounts or
dormant savings accounts? So it's a it's just frankly unbelievable
that you have a quarter of a million dollars in
donor funds sitting around and you were unaware that it
was being siphoned off by somebody who isn't even on
your staff, somebody that works for the governor. So he's
(27:28):
gonna have a hard time explaining that. No word yet
from Besarah, but I think this is it. I mean this,
it's very hard to recover from this. I think they're both.
I think Katie Porter's done, Besara's done, and somebody's gonna
have to jump in, but it remains to be seen.
I appreciate the call, all right. Coming up following the
(27:50):
news at eight, the government shutdown was ended and the
continuing Resolution was signed and everybody will get their retroactive
pay on Saturday. And I understand some TSA agents that
did not call out sick got a ten thousand dollars
(28:12):
bonus check today, So everybody's made whole. Some people got
bonus checks. Everything's fine, it'll all be fine, and everything's
back in order. But another thing took place at the
federal government that is really astounding to me, and that
is the last penny was stamped. They stamped the last
(28:32):
penny was officially minted, and now the mint is no
longer minting any more pennies. And it's incredible because this
just typifies why government is stupid. It took all this time.
The US government, you and I the taxpayer, have been
losing not millions, tens of millions of dollars for years
(28:56):
making a coin that costs for times to make. Then
it's worth the penny represents one cent, and it costs
almost four cents to produce. And for years people have
been saying, you know, we should probably stop doing this.
You know, we're running a deficit, there's a national debt.
(29:19):
Let's you know, cut where we can and for you.
I remember there was something in the nineties called the
Coin Coalition in Washington, and then they wanted to stop
at the penny. They wanted to stop at the penny
and mint a dollar coin. It was always a hard time.
The biggest problem with the dollar coin was not the
dollar coin. The dollar coin made cent like it made.
(29:41):
It was logical right paper money and coins of meat
right at the dollar, so it did make. It made
a lot of sense. No pun intended. The biggest problem
with the dollar coin was nobody could decide on whose
face goes on the front. There was this huge woke
fight for years, do we get Saka Juea? Is it
(30:04):
Susan b Anthony? We got to get a woman. They
fought for years on who's face goes on the dollar coin?
And for years they never had the dollar coin, and
so they never phased out the penny when they knew
they were gonna start losing money very very quickly. So
eighty five million dollars was lost in twenty twenty four
(30:26):
alone making pennies because nobody could stop it from happening.
It eluded the Clinton administration, it eluded eight years of
George W. Bush, eight years of Obama. Nobody could get
that penny like out of production even though we were
losing money. It eluded the first Trump administration and the
(30:50):
Biden administration, and finally yesterday they stopped making the penny.
Now everybody's concerned about how are we going to round
up and how are we gonna round down? Discussing this
thing for almost thirty five years, but now everybody's worried
about rounding up or rounding down. And I guess Walmart
and McDonald's have asked the Justice Department for some kind
(31:15):
of directions so that they don't get involved in a
class action lawsuit. They're concerned that they're not going to
be able to issue change, and so in lieu of
exact change though around one way or another, and depending
on where you are, you'll either save money or lose
money a couple of pennies at a time by the rounding.
(31:38):
Now you should come out even and Walmart should come
out even over time, but there is going to be
some class action lawsuit filed. You better believe it. You
know that somebody's going to sue Starbucks on behalf of
the entire state of California because people went in and
to go by and didn't get exact change. And it's
(31:59):
the penny's ball. So we will explore this because there's
other aspects of this besides the whole rounding thing. It
changes the whole ninety nine, Like every single thing on
the menu at McDonald's ends in ninety nine or eighty
nine or seventy nine. So will they drop all their
prices to four to ninety five or will they just
(32:22):
end with the whole charade of ninety nine and make
it a clear five dollars and how does that change
the marketing? So interesting stuff. We'll talk about the end
of the penny next. Lou Penrose on KFI AM six
forty live everywhere, on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1 (32:39):
KFI AM six forty on demand
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