A mole working for the Biden FBI was secretly recording Gavin Newsom's inner circle before the agency expanded its corruption probe into the California governor and his wife, according to a bombshell report by the NY Post.
Democrat insider Alexis Podesta, a 45-year-old Sacramento consultant and Newsom appointee - no known relation to John Podesta - secretly taped conversations for the FBI as early as June 2024, while Joe Biden was still in the White House, according to McGregor Scott, the former US attorney now representing Dana Williamson. Williamson, 53, ran Newsom's office as chief of staff until late 2024; in May she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and lying to federal agents.
Federal prosecutors accused Williamson and others of orchestrating a scheme to siphon roughly $225,000 from a dormant campaign account which belonged to former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra -disguising the payments as legitimate consulting fees while routing the money to benefit Becerra's former chief of staff, Sean McCluskie. According to Podesta's attorney, she was placed in charge of overseeing the account in question - but did not know the payments were improper.
Becerra is now the Democratic nominee to succeed Newsom as governor.
"Alexis wore a wire, and Dana did not," said Williamson's lawyer and former US attorney for the Eastern District of California, McGregor Scott.
"A lot of people received letters essentially informing us that there were certain periods of time where the FBI was given access to follow phone calls," said assemblymember Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), who said he was among those who received a letter even though he had never spoken with either Podesta or Williamson.
"I don’t know how these investigations work, but it sounds like they cast a pretty broad net across the Capitol community to see what they could find."
A separate source with knowledge of the matter said they knew of four Sacramento insiders who also received FBI notifications confirming they had been recorded.
One recipient told the source: “Dude, I got this f—ing letter. I never even met with Dana Williamson!”
“Their curiosity was that they never even met with Dana Williamson, so they were wondering what this is all about,” the source said.
“And now you have the answer.” -NY Post
News of the wire comes just over two weeks after Newsom claimed that the Trump administration is punishing him because he may run for president in 2028.
"They're demanding records, they're abusing the grand jury process, digging through years and years of random documents. Donald Trump isn't just coming after me because of my mean tweets, he's coming after me because I'm considering running for president, because he hates that I've consistently called him out over and over again for his lies and deceit," Newsom said, before sending a mass email asking for political donations.
Sources close to the investigation, however, told The Post that the feds have spent the past year digging into Newsom, his staff, and his wife's taxes after whistleblowers reportedly dropped the dime that led to the probe. Williamson's attorney told the outlet that his client declined to cooperate because she didn't have anything on Newsom.
Podesta - a former staffer for the late Dianne Feinstein, is a longtime Democratic power broker who remains on California's State Compensation Insurance Fund board - to which Newsom appointed her in January 2020. She also held senior positions in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration, and served as secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. While she hasn't been charged with a crime, her attorney identified her as an uncharged co-conspirator in the Williamson indictment.
Of note, Podesta is still getting paid $60,797 by the state while cooperating with the FBI, while she sits on the Insurance Fund Board.
Campaign finance records show Becerra's committee making $10,000 monthly payments to 'Podesta Company' during 2023 and 2024. During this period, Williamson - while Newsom's CoS - shared confidential info with Podesta regarding a corporate client that has now been identified as Activision Blizzard.
Williamson’s plea agreement states that she was captured in a June 2024 wiretap strategizing with the co-conspirator about how to respond to a Public Records Act request involving the state’s litigation against the company. Williamson and Podesta exchanged text messages on the issue, according to court records. Podesta has not publicly commented on the matter. -NY Post
Hoover, the Republican assemblymember, told The Post: "All of this stuff just raises so many questions ... "What is going on in this administration? What types of conversations are being had? I think the entire case should be really concerning for the general public. It’s really raising a lot of mistrust."
"I think it underlines how problematic this current administration is. [Newsom] is someone who wants to run for president of the United States. It’s really disappointing to see that this is the level of our politics."