Racketeering or politics? For Attorney General Rob Bonta, it’s all fine. – Press Telegram

Right here’s a riddle for you: What’s the distinction between racketeering and politics?

Take your time.

Federal regulation, 18 U.S. Code Part 1861, defines racketeering exercise to incorporate “any act or risk” involving an extended listing of state and federal crimes. These could embody obstruction of justice, obstruction of legal investigations, cash laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, straw purchasers, extortion and sure false statements. 

It’s stunningly just like what’s wanted for an extended and profitable profession in California politics.

 There may be completely nothing to counsel that California Legal professional Normal Rob Bonta is responsible of any crime. The truth that he not too long ago paid $468,228 from his re-election marketing campaign account to a regulation agency with a practice area in “authorities investigations” is totally not indicative of any exercise by the lawyer basic that’s in any approach unlawful. The whole lot’s high quality.

The web site for the regulation agency of Wilson Sonsini states that its “skilled crew” of attorneys “have assisted purchasers dealing with all kinds of inquiries,” together with “responding to letters of inquiry or subpoenas” in each “casual” and “large-scale, formal investigations, together with parallel legal and civil proceedings involving doubtlessly vital monetary penalties or different extreme penalties.”

These will not be the attorneys you name for a automobile accident. Bonta was contacted by federal regulation enforcement authorities as a part of an investigation into bribery. Former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao was indicted in January, as have been her companion Andre Jones and two longtime Bonta donors, Oakland enterprise homeowners Andy and David Duong. The FBI raided Thao’s house and a number of the Duongs’ properties in June 2024.

Bonta advised KCRA’s Ashley Zavala, who broke the story of the large authorized payments, that he was a “witness who supplied info which may be useful to their investigation of different individuals.” He stated the federal authorities first reached out to him as a result of they thought he was “a sufferer of potential extortion or blackmail.” 

The whole lot’s high quality. The lawyer basic of California could have been blackmailed. Over what? We don’t know, and maybe the $468,228 he spent on attorneys will preserve it that approach.

How does a authorized invoice get that prime? Bonta stated he had attorneys “working across the clock to be responsive” beginning within the “late summer time or early fall of 2024.” He stated he supplied paperwork to the federal government from “a number of gadgets, a number of computer systems and laptops; there’s plenty of locations the place info is saved, and each one among us has a really vital information footprint.”

Seems like this fell underneath the class of “responding to letters of inquiry or subpoenas” on the regulation agency’s listing of companies. Bonta advised Zavala he’s “1,000% not a goal” of the investigation. 

The whole lot’s high quality.

The Truthful Political Practices Fee, which regulates and enforces legal guidelines on marketing campaign finance in California, confirmed to Zavala that it obtained a criticism over Bonta’s use of marketing campaign funds to pay these authorized payments and would resolve inside 14 days whether or not to open an investigation. Don’t maintain your breath. Even when it’s an unlawful use of marketing campaign funds, what are they alleged to do, refer the case to the lawyer basic? 

So every thing’s high quality, however Bonta would love you to know that he has given away the $155,100 in marketing campaign contributions from the Duongs and their associates “out of an abundance of warning.” 

Politico Playbook reported that after it raised questions on sure contributions, Bonta returned or donated: $80,000 from attorneys representing SoCal Edison that he accepted simply earlier than saying that there could be no legal prices in opposition to the corporate for beginning a wildfire in 2018; $4,000 he accepted from attorneys who represented ride-share corporations difficult a California labor regulation; and $16,200 he accepted from the Bicycle On line casino whereas his workplace was investigating it.

It’s high quality to simply accept the cash after which give it up later if anyone raises large moral questions. The whole lot’s high quality.

Perhaps you do not forget that time when L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s workplace had L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl on the ropes over profitable and questionable Metro contracts she accepted for a good friend’s nonprofit group. On September 14, 2022, the sheriff’s workplace executed search warrants at Metro headquarters, Kuehl’s residence and workplace, and different areas.

Lower than every week later, Bonta ordered the sheriff’s division to “stop any investigative actions” associated to the case and to “transmit all proof, investigative studies, and data within the LASD’s possession associated to the LASD investigation to the DOJ,” that’s, to the California Division of Justice. In different phrases, to Bonta’s workplace.

Guess what occurred. 

On August 7, 2024, Bonta introduced that he wouldn’t pursue legal prices in opposition to Kuehl or her good friend, or anybody who had tipped them off with advance warning of the search warrants.

That is completely not obstruction of justice or obstruction of a legal investigation or racketeering. The whole lot’s high quality.

And positively there was nothing unlawful about Bonta utilizing “behested funds” to boost cash for his spouse Mia’s “Literacy Lab” nonprofit when he was within the Meeting, together with $3,500 from Pacific Gasoline & Electrical in 2015 and $6,500 in 2016. In California, it’s authorized for elected officers to name individuals or entities with enterprise earlier than the state and ask them to make limitless donations, even when these donations go to nonprofits that pay a beneficiant wage to a right away member of the family. It’s completely not extortion and it’s actually not racketeering.