Longtime California Democrat politician and current Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who famously called people opposed to ongoing mask mandates “snowflake weepies,” is giving a master class on how to not respond in the media when a search warrant is executed at your home.
Kuehl spoke to Fox LA outside her home early Wednesday morning about an hour after LA County Sheriff’s deputies showed up at her door.
I opened the door and there were very many Sheriff’s deputies kind of, I would say swarming outside. One of them presented me with a warrant to search the house, which has no information in it at all, signed by a judge who is a friend of the Sheriff’s. But this strikes me as being part of a — sort of a bogus, non-investigation. There is no investigation going on that would support this warrant.
She really said that. Said it with a straight face, with no clue as to how ironic her statements are. In addition, though, it’s well-known throughout Los Angeles that there’s been an investigation ongoing for nearly two years into a no-bid contract totaling $800,000 for a rarely-used sexual harassment hotline for the LA Metro that was awarded to a non-profit run by one of Kuehl’s besties. Then she informs everyone that she’s been informed that a search warrant was being executed at LA Metro’s offices at that moment.
I heard it through — they took my phone, so, as you know, I have no communication at all, but apparently Metro is being searched.
Kuehl then blamed the existence of the warrant on a former employee she characterizes as “obsessed with a contract that was let to a nonprofit called Peace Over Violence,” referring to the controversy over the no-bid contract. But still, in her mind there’s no reason for this search warrant.
And there’s more.
I heard from county counsel last night that she got a tip from Max [Huntsman] that this search would happen this morning. But I had gotten a call from the LA Times last week with the same information and nothing happened, so I thought it was just bogus.
So, the LA Times knew last week that a warrant had issued and was going to be executed? Perhaps that tip-off is why the search didn’t happen last week. And why is Max Huntsman, LA County Inspector General, leaking the information? It could be argued that he had to notify county counsel, but counsel’s action in texting Kuehl to tip her off is extremely questionable.
At the end of the interview, after excoriating LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva for allowing this “harassment” to stand, Kuehl goes back to her talking point about an “obsessed” employee.
My belief is that it’s based on this old obsession by the Metro employee that some contract was let out at my behest with which I had nothing to do. I didn’t even know about the contract. So it’s all based on a very slim thread, and it’s clearly harassment.
Kuehl’s statements are contradicted in the original report on the no-bid contract, a story investigated and broken by Fox’s Bill Melugin before he went to the national network. Before Kuehl was elected, and when Melugin’s story was published in 2020, she was a member of Peace Over Violence’s advisory board. The executive director, Patti Giggans, officiated Kuehl’s wedding, and she donated thousands of dollars to Kuehl’s campaign, and at least three other board members donated as well.
Shortly after Kuehl was elected in 2014, Peace Over Violence started realizing the benefit of their support. First, the group was awarded a $75,000 “no-bid purchase” for an awareness campaign called “Off Limits,” letting the public know that sexual harassment is “off limits” at Metro (as if it’s acceptable anywhere else?). Kuehl and Giggans attended the press conference announcing the campaign.
Then in February 2016 Kuehl’s Deputy for Special Projects, Madeleine Moore, who staffs the Supervisor on the LA County Metro Board, sent an email to Giggans, a representative from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, and a few of Metro’s top executives referencing a meeting held a couple of weeks before then asking for a “dedicated line at the Peace Over Violence call center for Metro.”
While the contracts awarded to Peace Over Violence total $890,000, none of them were for more than $500,000, meaning that they didn’t have to go before the Metro board for a vote. It’s astounding that Kuehl claims she only learned about the hotline when she went to a press conference announcing it. She expects people to believe that her office orchestrated it — as documented in the email above — and that one of her best friends, as the executive director of that organization, never mentioned it to her?
Kuehl is one of four LA County Supervisors who recently voted to place a measure on the November ballot that, if approved, would allow the Board of Supervisors to remove a publicly-elected Sheriff “for cause.” Kuehl voted on that issue even though many prominent county residents urged her to recuse herself given the ongoing investigation into Peace Over Violence’s no-bid contract, and into other issues at LA Metro.
Kuehl’s term in office ends this year. She is not seeking re-election.
Watch Kuehl’s comments to Fox LA below.
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