Gov. Gavin Newsom's final State of the State address. (Photo: gov.ca.gov)
The California Left’s Nonprofit Funding and Massive Fraud
The LA homeless fraud is just the tip of the iceberg in California
By Katy Grimes, January 26, 2026 6:18 pm
The news on Friday stunned many Californians, when California’s U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced the arrest of Alexander Soofer of Los Angeles, who was charged with wire fraud, and that officials seized his $125,000 Range Rover and LA mansion, after he was arrested for allegedly stealing millions in taxpayer funds meant to house and feed the homeless in Los Angeles. Soofer was contracted with the city and county of Los Angeles, to house and feed up to 600 homeless people. But instead, spent millions on a luxurious life, the Globe reported. Soofer stole approximately $23 million, Fox reported.
Not long after this blockbuster story, Essayli posted to X:
We are working with @DrOz to investigate massive healthcare fraud occurring in California.
We are working with @DrOz to investigate massive healthcare fraud occurring in California. https://t.co/TfDRCwKDsC
— F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) January 26, 2026
Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said California is one of the epicenters for fraud, waste and abuse in the entire country, and they are probing massive suspected hospice and home‑health fraud in Los Angeles. If even a fraction of this is true, elected officials and public employees knew of it, and allowed taxpayers to be robbed blind. Home-health services are government approved.
If you thought the fraud was out of control in Minnesota, wait until you learn about what’s happening in California.@USAttyEssayli pic.twitter.com/ek2XOTA22X
— DrOzCMS (@DrOzCMS) January 26, 2026
We have been ringing the alarm bells for many years about dubious non-profits tied to politicians and their families, friends, and associates… non-profits that are untraceable black holes for taxpayer/government funding. And it’s been going on a long time. Back when Jerry Brown Was California Attorney General, I was reporting on non-profit fraud, and sending the information to the Attorney general’s office. But all I got back was crickets.
And surprisingly, we aren’t hearing bupkis from Republicans in Sacramento… even after Globe contributor Richie Greenberg and I recently reported on and exposed some really shady non-profit organizations and NGOs tied to the governor.
…Except Assemblyman David Tangipa (R-Fresno). “I think corruption is the number one thing people are thinking about now,” Assemblyman Tangipa told the Globe Monday. “You know your money isn’t going to what you want – especially in California. “I hear from people in my district now who cynically say they should have opened up a daycare – ‘I’d be retired by now’ they tell me.”
Republicans and Democrats tell Assemblyman Tangipa that the system is broken, and it doesn’t work for them when they can’t afford gas and groceries. “‘So I voted for Donald Trump to fix this,'” constituents tell him. “And liberals say much the same, except they say ‘I’m going to vote for Zohran Mamdani’… for the person they say will break the system,” he said. “I feel the same way – if we are one of the top 10 largest economies in the world, where does it reflect that?” Tangipa asked.
He continued: “If we pay the highest taxes, we should have the best resources – roads, property taxes for schools, should be the best. All 6th graders should be able to tread at grade level.”
“But we are getting the worst resources on our investment. Where is that money going?”
When politicians can fly to Davos, but people have to take out a loan to pay utility bills… and our elected officials can go to super fancy bashes, and fly private to brag about… brag about what?” he asked.
“The average Californian is is paying the most and getting the least. And it’s only getting worse. The Governor’s budget office and the Legislative Analyst’s Office both report that California has record high tax revenue -the most tax revenues in history – where is the money going?”
“Who is to blame?” Tangipa asked. “The Billionaires? That explains the billionaire tax. But people are looking at the fraud… looking at daycares that don’t exist… home health care that doesn’t exist?”
“This California corruption… ‘where are my tax dollars going?’ people want to know. We need to be telling everybody that ‘your government doesn’t care about you.'”
He added, “Heads will roll.”
This should be the unifying issue among Conservatives, and moderate Democrats, at the very least. And yes, people want heads to roll.
On Monday, more details came available about massive healthcare fraud occurring in California:
Trump CMS Administrator Dr. Oz is EXPOSING jaw-dropping fraud in Gavin Newsom’s California with US Attorney Bill Essayli.
“We have witnessed a 7-fold INCREASE in hospice in LA County. Seven-fold. That doesn’t happen naturally!”
“$3.5B just here in Los Angeles County. We think around hospice and home health care. Then you add in all the other things like they have in Minnesota, but in California scale, it’s huge.”
“There are not seven times more deaths in LA County than there were five years ago. These fraudsters, and these do tend to be foreign influences, these are Russian-Armenian gangs, mafia, that are leading a lot of these efforts.”
“A lot of it’s driven by foreigners who came to Los Angeles, very different culture, Russian-Armenian groups, and this mafia seems to have taken over the system.”
“They corrupt the doctors, they normalize fraud so that everyone sort of expects it, but the magnitude of it is so great that we have to take it on aggressively.”
“It’s a focus area for CMS, and this administration under President Trump is not going to tolerate taxpayer dollars being stolen because people aren’t paying attention anymore. We’re focused on this.”
Gavin Newsom is furious.
How did this happen? How did public employees and elected politicians allow this to happen? How many are involved?
In March, Globe contributor Richie Greenberg and I addressed “The Left’s Nonprofit Shadow Campaign Fund,” and explained, “When corporations cozy up to politicians through ‘charity,’ they’re not competing on merit—they’re buying influence.”
Here is the refresher course, and note that the non-profits we name are still out there and still deserve serious scrutiny:
In a nation built on free enterprise and personal responsibility, the abuse of nonprofit organizations and behest contributions by political elites like California Governor Gavin Newsom represents a betrayal of American values.
California’s one-party rule ensures the powerful protect their own.
These mechanisms, intended to foster benevolence, charity and public good, have instead morphed into a taxpayer-subsidized slush fund for the well-connected, allowing politicians across America to enrich their families, reward donors, and dodge accountability—all while cloaking their schemes in the guise of altruism. This is not just unethical; it’s a direct assault on the principles of limited government and fair play. It’s time to expose this racket and demand legislative reform to shut it down.
Non-profit organizations and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become a shadow government in the U.S. Despite reporting on blatantly phony non-profit groups to the California Attorney General for many years, nothing ever happened. California’s corruption begins at the top, as does the corruption in the United States.
Think back to Barack Obama and ACORN, a very shady “community activist” organization that helped bring Obama to power. ACORN was a community organizing group that claimed to help poor people with low-income housing issues, but was really registering thousands/millions of people to vote in Democratic districts. Some of these supposed voters reportedly were actually dead, nonexistent, or used shacks and empty buildings as their home addresses.
Sounds just like ACTBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, now accused of violating federal law in allowing terrorism-linked groups to use its services. ACTBlue is also said to be linked to financing attacks on Tesla showrooms and Elon Musk, among other violent “protests” across the country. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has formally requested the Trump administration to open up an investigation into ACTBlue to investigate “credible allegations” that ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, violated federal law in allowing terrorism-linked groups to use its services.
Nonprofits, with their tax-exempt status and loose oversight, have become a playground for political insiders. Take Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and her outfit, The Representation Project.“While her husband attends to state business, Siebel Newsom engages in her passion: advancing ‘gender justice’ through her charitable nonprofit The Representation Project, Open the Books reported. According to tax documents the organization is ‘committed to building a thriving and inclusive society through films, education, and social activism.’”
Jennifer Siebel Newsom solicited state vendors and the governor’s campaign donors for large gifts to her charity, The Representation Project. Since 2011, this supposed gender-justice charity has raked in over $800,000 from corporate giants like PG&E, AT&T, and Comcast—firms with billions at stake in California’s regulatory landscape. Siebel Newsom pocketed $2.3 million in salary over those years, pulling six-figure paychecks while her husband climbed from lieutenant governor to governor. These donors aren’t philanthropists; they’re players in a game where cash flows to the governor’s family, and favors—like lax utility oversight or cushy state contracts—flow back. It’s cronyism dressed up as compassion.
Then there’s the behest contribution scam—legalized influence peddling that Newsom has mastered. In 2019, he solicited nearly $8 million for his inaugural bash and wildfire relief, much of it from corporations with state business. In 2020, he pulled in $26 million for COVID-19 efforts, with heavy hitters like Blue Shield ($1 million) and McKinsey & Company ($250,000) chipping in—only for McKinsey to later snag a $35 million state contract.
Gov. Gavin Newsom had no-bid contracts with Blue Shield and McKinsey & Company, and outsourced much of California’s vaccine rollout during the Covid crisis, the Globe reported. “Private contractors cost taxpayers millions of dollars, while demonstrating few clear results and papering over weaknesses in the country’s public health system,” the Washington Post even reported.
Siebel Newsom, through The Representation Project, has released four films advocating gender justice. The films are leased for screenings to individuals, corporations, and schools, and come with their own lesson plans. Schools spend between $49-$599 to screen these movies to children.
With her Governor husband, who would dare deny her solicitations? See just a little conflict of interest?
Interestingly, Gavin Newsom’s home town, “San Francisco’s nonprofit sector is the largest per capita of any California county – $9 billion outstanding in federal grants and loans for Bay Area entities, according to U.S. contract data. That includes more than $1 billion earmarked directly for nonprofits, and much more that filters down to organizations across the region through state and local governments and institutions,” the San Francisco Standard recently reported. Naturally, Bay Area nonprofits are dumbfounded from President Trump’s “funding cuts and chaos. San Francisco has the largest share of the nonprofit workforce of any California county. Other Bay Area counties, including Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Alameda, follow right behind.”
California law, conveniently tightened by a bill Newsom himself signed, requires reporting these donations above $5,000, but that’s just window dressing. The system lets him shake down donors for unlimited sums, funneling cash to pet causes while building a network of indebted allies. It’s not charity; it’s a shadow campaign fund, free from the caps and scrutiny real candidates face.
This isn’t hypothetical—it’s happening in plain sight. The California State Protocol Foundation, a nonprofit tied to Newsom, which has only a 56% rating from Charity Navigator, handed out cellphones with Newsom’s personal number to CEOs in 2024, funded by private donations from businesses he regulates. Meanwhile, The Representation Project went delinquent in 2022 for flouting charitable registration rules yet kept hosting glitzy galas bankrolled by the same corporate cronies. The IRS, gutted by decades of underfunding, does nothing.
California’s watchdog Fair Political Practices Commission, tasked with policing behest payments, just shrugs, likely because Governor Newsom appointed two of the four commissioners, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta appointed one and Secretary of State Shirley Weber appointed one. California’s Constitutional Officers and governor are all Democrats.
We know this game: the rules only apply to the little guy, while the elite connected and government employees skate free.
This exploitation offends on multiple levels. First, it’s a misuse of taxpayer dollars. Nonprofits’ tax breaks mean every dollar Siebel Newsom takes home is indirectly subsidized by working Americans, many of whom can’t afford California’s sky-high taxes—taxes Newsom loves to hike. Second, it erodes trust in free markets. When corporations cozy up to politicians through “charity,” they’re not competing on merit—they’re buying influence, distorting the level playing field we champion. Third, it’s a mockery of personal accountability. Newsom preaches equity and justice while his family cashes in, proving once again that progressive elites live by a different set of rules.
The broader nonprofit swamp amplifies the problem. Politicians across the spectrum set up interlocking charities, staffed by relatives and loyalists, to launder donor money into personal wealth. Funds bounce between 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s, obscuring the trail. Behest contributions supercharge this, letting officials like Newsom solicit millions with no cap, as long as they call it “public good.” It’s a huge loophole and it’s no accident—California’s one-party rule ensures the powerful protect their own.
Enough is enough. We must demand reform to dismantle this racket. First, cap behest contributions at a reasonable limit—say, $10,000 per donor annually—and ban them from entities with state contracts or lobbying interests. Second, mandate real-time public disclosure of all nonprofit donations above $1,000, stripping away the secrecy that shields these deals. Third, tighten IRS rules: no nonprofit executive tied to an elected official should draw a salary exceeding, say, $50,000 without proving the group’s impact—measured in hard outcomes, not vague platitudes. Fourth, impose stiff penalties—fines, jail time, loss of tax status—for noncompliance, like The Representation Project’s delinquency. Finally, fund enforcement. A lean, efficient government doesn’t mean a toothless one; give regulators the tools to root out abuse.
Newsom’s operation is a poster child for this corruption, but he’s not alone. The system itself is rotten, and we hardworking taxpayers —guardians of integrity and small government—must lead the charge to fix it. We need to end the nonprofit gravy train and restore a system where charity serves the people, not the powerful. Anything less is a surrender to the elitist swamp we’ve actually sworn to drain.
Richie Greenberg is a long-time San Francisco resident, political commentator and former Republican candidate for mayor. He was founder of and media spokesman for the recall of DA Chesa Boudin. Follow him on X/Twitter @greenbergnation and www.richiegreenberg.org
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
- The California Left’s Nonprofit Funding and Massive Fraud - January 26, 2026
- Governor Gavin Newsom’s Record on Raising Taxes on the Rich Speaks for Itself - January 24, 2026
- U.S. Atty Bill Essayli Busts California Homeless Fraudster - January 23, 2026
RELATED ARTICLES
-
October 22, 2024 -
-
November 13, 2018
Thank you for specifically calling out these Democrat proverbial cockroaches in California and shining the light on their financial misdeeds.
We California taxpayers are beyond fed up with the awful mismanagement by California officials, the majority of whom are Democrats!
Thanks to the corrupt Mafioso Democrats, fraud has become a way of life in California. As, Dr. Oz has discovered in California Medicare fraud, the fox is living in the chicken coop, at the behest of the farmer, who is collecting on his “losses” by charging the taxpayers. The California taxpayers are the suckers as usual. Can we end this corruption please?