Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is accusing his Democrat opponent, former Biden-era Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, of knowing that hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds were illicitly paid to his chief of staff.
Hilton said he has the receipts, and he wants the FBI to re-open their investigation into Becerra:
🚨 BREAKING: Becerra/Newsom chiefs of staff federal criminal probe must be re-opened:
— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) August 30, 2026
- Witness statement contradicts Becerra claim he didn't know about the criminal scheme
- Becerra must be re-interviewed by the FBI
- Voters must know if he's a criminal BEFORE the election… pic.twitter.com/Pr9oN3tOUJ
- 🚨 BREAKING: Becerra/Newsom chiefs of staff federal criminal probe must be re-opened:
- Witness statement contradicts Becerra claim he didn't know about the criminal scheme
- Becerra must be re-interviewed by the FBI
- Voters must know if he's a criminal BEFORE the election
Letter to Todd Blanche from me and [California Attorney General candidate] @MichaelGatesESQ below👇
Hilton appeared on the Fox Business Channel on Sunday and said it was “impossible to believe Becerra didn’t know about the scheme”:
This is a new announcement right this morning…
This guy Becerra, he was, he's a 36-year career politician. He'll be worse even than Newsom if he's elected. But the really terrible thing is that he's up to his neck in a corruption scandal. It's involving his former chief of staff, and they took money from a California campaign account and used it to top up this other guy's salary when he was chief of staff to Becerra when he was HHS secretary.
Here are more details on what allegedly went down: when Becerra was appointed by former President Joe Biden to be his HHS chief in 2020, he wanted his longtime chief of staff Sean McCluskie to come to him, but McCluskie wanted more money. Becerra’s underlings then worked up a scheme to divert $225K from his California campaign account to a consulting firm run by Governor Gavin Newsom's former chief of staff, Dana Williamson. The money was then used to pay McCluskie’s wife for a fake job.
McCluskie, Williamson, and a Sacramento lobbyist all separately pleaded guilty to fraud and other charges in the case in late 2025 and May 2026. They are awaiting sentencing.
Hilton said he’s got the proof Becerra knew, and it’s time for the FBI to get back in the game:
Now, they've been federally indicted; they pleaded guilty. Becerra claims he knew nothing about this illegal scheme, but we've got the witness statement from the case, and right there, I've circled it in red.
There's a text exchange between the two people who pleaded guilty, and it says one of them says to the other, “Talk to Public Official Number One.” Becerra has confirmed that he is Public Official Number One.
In other words, he did know about this, and I think — because it's all about him getting his cheaper staff, working with him in D.C. — he probably came up with the whole idea. He needs to be re-interviewed by the FBI to make sure that voters know whether the Democrat candidate for governor is actually a criminal.
Our letter to Todd Blanche requesting Becerra be reinterviewed by the FBI: pic.twitter.com/rubusTBlM9
— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) August 30, 2026
Is this the smoking gun that could end Becerra’s career? Let's hope Kash Patel and Co. find out.
Editor’s Note: California is the poster child for everything that is wrong with the Democrat Party and the “progressive” movement.
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