“I see nothing! I hear nothing! I know nothing!” That was Sergeant Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes,” but it is also what Xavier Becerra wants us to believe about the theft of $225,000 from his former campaign account.
This issue has resurfaced because his opponent for governor of California, Steve Hilton, has asked the US Attorney General to review Becerra’s role regarding the ongoing corruption case.
Though the original case, which federal investigators launched during Joe Biden’s presidential administration, was not aimed at Becerra, it places him uncomfortably close to the action.
When Biden appointed Becerra as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Becerra wanted his longtime chief of staff and closest aide, Sean McCluskie, to move to Washington, D.C. to join him.
The problem: McCluskie wanted more money than the federal government could pay him. So the staffers who are now in trouble cooked up a scheme to get McCluskie $225,000 from Becerra’s old state campaign.
The scheme worked until federal agents started looking into where all the money was going at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife’s supposed nonprofit operation. Then matters started to unravel.
It was revealed that payments had allegedly been made to a consulting firm run by Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, and then to McCluskie’s wife, for “consulting services.”
McCluskie, Williamson and a Sacramento lobbyist, Greg Campbell, were all indicted and have since pleaded guilty to felony charges. McCluskie pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. He has not been sentenced yet, but he can be given up to 30 years in federal prison.
Interestingly, the Biden-era Department of Justice treated Becerra as a victim in this conspiracy. The prosecutors asserted that the scheme was hatched without his knowledge and that Becerra would have refused to allow the payments if he would have known about them.
Becerra stated that the charges came as a “gut punch.”
As the expression goes: Give me a break.
Republicans believe Biden had some stupid people working for him, but no one can believe they were this stupid.
Becerra is now running for the highest state office in California and finds himself in the ultimate catch-22. He must plead ignorance or incompetence.
Until now, he has chosen ignorance. He told people he had no idea his chief of staff had hatched this scheme. McCluskie had somehow cured his financial concerns about the move and was just doing his job.
Alternatively, Becerra could choose to make the incompetence argument, even though he is running to become the head of the second-largest governmental entity in the United States. He would have to convince voters that he was too incompetent to supervise his most important employee in his previous position. Then he would have to ask them, on that basis, to promote him to a new and more consequential position.
Can you imagine someone making that argument applying to be the head of say, General Motors? No, you can’t.
The press in California, so far, has let Becerra slide. And while some Democrats threw the corruption scandal at Becerra in the closing stages of the primary campaign, it was far too late to make a difference. He was the party’s chosen frontrunner, and could not be dislodged.
Now Democrats are stuck with him. And California will be, too.
But voters need to know the truth before he coasts to victory. The Department of Justice should reinterview Becerra. We need to find out whether he is ignorant or incompetent.
And, come to think of it, there is a third possibility: Becerra could be lying.
The people need to know before casting their ballots.
Bruce Bialosky, a former presidential appointee, is a certified public accountant specializing in taxes.
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The post Voters deserve to know whether Xavier Becerra knew about corruption scandal appeared first on New York Post.
