More Allies Of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao Resign Amidst Growing Problems For Mayor
Thao grows desperate to fight recall in new donation e-mail
By Evan Symon, June 27, 2024 2:30 pm
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s standing in the city continued to falter this week as more key allies have cut ties with her amidst her sending mass e-mails to donors asking for emergency donations to fight the upcoming recall election.
Over the last nine days, Mayor Thao’s political career in Oakland has been rocked by a series of negative events and scandals. On Tuesday of last week, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters announced that enough signatures have been approved to officially put the recall vote against Mayor Sheng Thao on the ballot, with Thao becoming the first Mayor in Oakland history to ever face a recall election. The recall effort, headed by the Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao (OUST) group, had gained a record number of signatures for the recall election, citing a raise in crime, erosion of public safety, the controversial firing of a police chief, her inability to keep the Oakland Athletics in the city, and her failure to get a major crime grant as reasons for her to be recalled.
Only two days later, her home in Oakland was raided by the FBI, with agents being seen carrying out boxes of evidence. While the official reason has yet to be announced by the FBI, evidence and other raids conducted by the FBI have shown that it likely has to do with an investigation into alleged illegal campaign contributions.
Thao remained out of the public eye during this time and into the weekend, during which, she faced an increasing number of calls to resign. Finally, on Monday, she gave a press conference. There, Thao spoke to the media for the first time since the incidents, claiming she was innocent of any wrongdoing and that ‘right-wing forces’ were behind the entire incident.
“I want to be crystal clear: I have done nothing wrong,” said Thao at the press conference. “I can tell you with confidence that this investigation is not about me. I have not been charged with a crime, and I am confident that I will not be charged with a crime because I am innocent. I want to know why the day following the qualification of a recall election, funded by some of the richest people in the Bay Area, seemed like the right day to execute a warrant. Right-winged forces are fueling the recall effort.”
More Thao allies resign
Rather than calm down critics and bolster ally support, her remarks were instead viewed as “unhinged” and “very un-mayoral like.” This caused many close to her to drop out. After her outburst on Monday, her attorney, Tony Brass, quickly resigned as her counsel as her speech had been unplanned.
“I had no idea that Thao was going to have the news conference,” said Brass after resigning. “She contacted me, and she was in a fair amount of crisis over the search warrant. I followed my procedure. I have a certain way of processing cases. Our attorney-client relationship was short-lived. I have an approach, and it appeared as though she had a different approach. I did not feel like I was the right guy to follow hers.”
The very next day her Chief Spokesman, Francis Zamora, also resigned. In a statement, he gave no reason for leaving, saying that “I resigned my position as Chief of Communications. I thank my colleagues for their professionalism and dedication. It was an honor to serve the City of Oakland beside them.”
Renia Webb, Thao’s former Chief of Staff, also called on Thao to resign after the press conference, alleging that Thao was involved with ‘pat-to-play’ schemes.
Thao’s newest donation e-mail against the recall election
Finally, on Wednesday, Thao began sending out e-mails asking for donations to help fight the upcoming recall election. Sent from a ‘Oaklanders Defending Democracy, Oppose the Recall of Mayor Thao’ web address and not her governmental one, Thao said “I want to be crystal clear. I am innocent and have done nothing wrong.” That was followed up by her speech on Monday. At the end of the e-mail two sentences were tacked on, asking for donations.
“I am a fighter and I will continue to fight every day for our beautiful city,” said Thao in the email. “But I need your help.”
With calls for Thao to resign not stopping on Thursday, and her situation only getting more dire this week, many political watchers in and around Oakland have said that the odds of her resigning or leaving office soon have grown exponentially.
“Every day either something else goes wrong for her or an attempt to right the ship only causes it to slam into another iceberg,” explained Alameda County pollster Elena Sierra to the Globe on Thursday. “Her allies are abandoning ship and she is getting more desperate for help. She is a fighter, and she clearly has some longer term plans as she sent out that donation e-mail. So it appears that she is going to fight this until the recall.”
“A recall is likelier now, but with her stubbornness, it looks like she will be through the recall election. Even if people give her the benefit of the doubt on the FBI raid, her actions on Monday really threw people off. Because there were many who were saying ‘Hey, let’s wait to hear officially what happened there’ which is fair. But that press conference. We’ve talked with a few hundred Oakland voters about this, and that press conference just killed any remaining support for her. She was already teetering before the recall election approval. But the recall ballot announcement, the raid, the speech and word of all her allies leaving her has been an unrelentless barrage on her. She’s not catching a break.”
“She needs good news right now. Any good news. Her first tweet after the raid came out yesterday, about securing a housing bond for the November ballot. The majority of comments mentioned the FBI raid. This isn’t going away anytime soon, as this is far from over. Who knows what else she will do in the coming weeks, especially with the FBI not yet giving more details about the raids.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Thao has yet to address the press again.
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And another Democrat turd gets flushed…. another one down, DOZENS more to go….
Ooh, the dominoes will begin to fall. It is rumored many bay area dems are connected to the Duong family.
Will rats jump the ship?
I sure hope so!