So now Rob Bonta has a passion for rooting out fraud.
The California attorney general, who in February scoffed at the prospect of widespread fraud in the Golden State — and accused the Trump administration of politicizing the issue — got the memo at last.
On Thursday the AG said his office had charged 21 people in connection with 14 hospices that had billed taxpayers $267 million for sham services.
Good. But talk about late to the ball.
It wasn’t until the media — led by the California Post — and the Trump administration, led by fraud czar JD Vance and federal prosecutor Bill Essayli, pressed the case against pervasive fraud that California brass would even concede the problem.
Just two months ago, in fact, Bonta staged a news conference in downtown LA to blast federal claims of California fraud as “reckless,” “false” and “ridiculous.”
Gavin Newsom has done no better.
In January, his office replied to news of the feds’ fraud investigation by slamming President Donald Trump as “a deranged, habitual liar” whose “relationship with reality ended years ago.”
And this month, a Newsom spokesman called City Journal’s comprehensive reporting on fraud in California “utter bull—— from top to bottom.”
Well. These are two of the state’s top executives, folks.
Instead of working to uproot fraud — much less prevent it — they’ve mostly denied, deflected, and attacked those who’ve pushed it to light.
It’s no wonder Essayli, the first assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California, has lost patience with this crew.
“Having my office prosecute fraudsters to whom California blindly handed out millions does not count as ‘fighting fraud,’” he wrote to Bonta on X. “It’s the federal government cleaning up after you and the [g]overnor’s incompetence.”
Also this month, Essayli said he expected fraud against taxpayers to reach “hundreds of billions” of dollars under the watch of “fraud king” Newsom.
The bold claims and eye-popping numbers fail to surprise given the entrenched culture of political handouts in California.
Elected officials pump taxpayer dollars — on a loop — to allies and cronies and sundry liberal causes, often with few controls and scant oversight.
The largesse helps buy political support for the perpetually ambitious in Sacramento.
Now, after months of denial and deflection, Bonta boasts of rooting out fraud himself.
His (unintended) message to taxpayers: Oh, all right, if we must.
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