AG Bonta Brags about Fraud Ring ‘Take Down’ as if He’s the Real Nick Shirley

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who currently has more than 55 lawsuits against President Donald Trump, announced today he’s the real Nick Shirley:

“We’ve taken down a hospice fraud ring responsible for $267 Million in fraud against the Medi-Cal system. This isn’t a political game for us. This is about protecting taxpayer dollars and the programs Californians rely on.”

We’ve taken down a hospice fraud ring responsible for $267 Million in fraud against the Medi-Cal system.

This isn’t a political game for us.

This is about protecting taxpayer dollars and the programs Californians rely on.https://t.co/YHfdN9LRu3 pic.twitter.com/dJi6ZxhTMW

— Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) April 9, 2026

Wow Rob. It’s good to see that AG Bonta is finally doing his job. But where has Bonta been the last 7+ years of Gavin Newsom’s two terms as California Governor?

Almost immediately, Assembly Republican Leader Heath Flora called for a special session on fraud across state programs, and also asked Bonta, “Why did it take so long?”

The Globe has been reporting on all kinds of fraud in California since Newsom was elected in 2018 – and in particular, fraud within non-profits which receive state funding.

20 years ago I was trying to get the CA AG to investigate corrupt NGOs and non-profits. Jerry Brown never did, but even then I found politicians with dubious non-profits hiring family members. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) was founded in 2005 by former President Bill… https://t.co/gVlbVHFxBB

— Katy Grimes (@KATYSaccitizen) March 3, 2026

In 2025 I explained:

Non-profit organizations and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become a shadow government in the U.S. Many years ago I reported blatantly phony non-profit groups to the California Attorney General. Nothing ever happened. So for many years, going back to when Jerry Brown was California’s Attorney General, I have researched and investigated dubious non-profits and written about them, hoping government officials would take notice – to no avail. 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.

The lid was blown off of ACORN by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, but the organization never really disbanded – they just changed names and continued their “community organizing” and shady leftist voter registration practices.

At the Globe, we’ve reported on so many dubious organizations, with damning details, but crickets… Read this recent article, about “Free Speech for People,” the non-profit parent organization of “Impeach Trump. Again.” for an example.

Globe Contributor Richie Greenberg and I in 2025 reported on and exposed some really shady non-profit organizations and NGOs tied to the governor, including non-profits run by his wife. If AG Bonta is sincere in his quest to take down fraud, he doesn’t need to look very far:

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.

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?

Here is more fraud the AG can take down…

There’s the Newsom 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.

Here is more fraud for AG Bonta:

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.

Rooting out fraud should be the unifying issue among Conservatives, and moderate Democrats, at the very least. And people want heads to roll.

AG Bonta, if he is so inclined, could also root around the California Air Resources Board like a truffle sniffing pig for some tasty fraud.

Twelve years ago in 2012, I reported that the California Air Resources Board finagled a way to conduct state business without any of that pesky transparency stuff required of state and government agencies by state law. Their motive was blatant.

The CARB Board, with help from then-Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, figured out a way to exempt itself from the state’s open meeting act.

Government Code 11120, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, is explicitly exempted in the language of budget trailer bill Senate Bill 1018. “That was the final nail in the coffin of transparency,” a Capitol staffer commented.

The government cover up of legally require transparency is specifically with Western Climate Initiative Inc (WCI, Inc.), the corporation created by California Air Resources Board to manage the then-new cap and trade auctions. The problem was that Western Climate Initiative Inc. was formed in Delaware, and not California. Delaware is not subject to California state open meeting or sunshine laws, leaving many questioning why CARB opted for such secrecy. The only reason to register the corporation in Delaware is the lack public or legislative scrutiny on any of their meetings or actions they take.

CARB operates like no other state agency. The rogue agency conducts its business in private, without the scrutiny of the public it is accountable to. Despite legislative and public outrage over the shroud of secrecy at CARB, Assembly Speaker John Perez was said to have crafted the language for SB 1018.

SB 1018 specifically exempted CARB from open meeting rules in upcoming cap-and-trade auctions, allowing CARB’s WCI Inc. to manage carbon trading auctions without any public scrutiny.

The outrage comes from the sole purpose of WCI Inc. — to impose hidden taxes on energy customers, as well as large and small businesses, without accountability or public knowledge. The CARB says in a November 2011 document that “WCI Inc., a new non-profit corporation formed to provide administrative and technical services to support the implementation of state and provincial greenhouse gas emissions trading programs.”

The CARB “CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION OF WESTERN CLIMATE INITIATIVE, INC”

is indeed filed in Delaware.

And, AG Bonta could perhaps find out why Gov. Gavin Newsom approved spending $1.5 Billion of taxpayers funding on masks from Chinese electric bus company BYD, during the COVID flu. BYD had no history of making personal protective equipment, and yet days after the FDA approval, it secured a $1 billion deal to supply masks to California.

There is plenty more fraud in California, and other reporters have exposed some serious cases. But few in California government were ever interested, as long as the Democrat Supermajority was running everything.

Hopefully, those days will come to an end soon.