Sacramento – Dana Williamson, one of the political veterans at the center of the financial scandal involving gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, looked shocked in a federal courtroom in downtown Sacramento Thursday morning, as most people do when bad choices collide with the harsh realities of the justice system.
With a thousand-yard stare in his eyes, Williamson answered “guilty” three times in a voice that required a microphone to be heard as the judge was taking him through a plea agreement reached days earlier with the U.S. Justice Department. He probably won’t be sentenced until the autumn (presumably closer to the general election) but – here again only one possibility – faces home confinement at best and more than three years in prison at worst.
This is a huge downgrade for a woman who wasn’t much of a mentor. Becerra’s political handlers, Governor Gavin Newsom, former Governor Jerry Brown and several companies including Meta and PG&E. At the Capitol she was known as a woman who got things done, sometimes smartly, sometimes not.
It was his acumen and ability to accomplish what was needed through deep connections and knowledge of the complex structures that controlled power in California – official and cultural – that made his dilemma all the more complex. Especially because instead of stealing the money for self-enrichment, he actually paid to be part of the scheme.
That just raises questions for me.
Although Williamson’s guilty plea may seem like the end of this saga, it shouldn’t be as there is still a lot hidden in the dark corners of this deal.
If Becerra makes it past the primary, which seems likely (I’ll use that word again), voters deserve to know.
According to court documents, here’s the simple backstory. Becerra’s close aide, Sean McCluskey, took a pay cut to remain with his boss when he moved to Washington, D.C., to become President Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services.
Strapped for cash, McCluskey asked Williamson to get money from Becerra’s inactive campaign account – which Becerra was not legally allowed to manage while holding federal office – and pass it through a bunch of other accounts before giving it to McCluskey’s wife as payment for a non-existent job.
Williamson’s attorney, McGregor Scott, said Thursday that Williamson received $7,500 a month from the Becerra account and added $2,500 of his own funds before sending it to eventually be traced to McCluskey — for a total of $10,000 a month.
McCluskey was “living on a government salary,” Scott said after court Thursday. “The wife is at home with the kids. They didn’t have enough money and that’s where it all started. (Williamson) was just trying to help a friend as best she could.”
Scott, former Bush and Trump United States attorneyAlong with lying to the FBI and filing false tax returns, Becerra managed to get Williamson’s original 23-count indictment dismissed over the account issue.
McCluskey entered his own guilty plea in the case. last November, and is scheduled to be sentenced in June, along with a third lobbyist.
Becerra, who is the narrowest-margin contender for the governorship, was the victim in the case — or more accurately, according to court documents, his state campaign bank account was.
There has never been any indication that Becerra was investigated as a partner, and he has forcefully denied wrongdoing, calling it a “gut punch” that his advisers allegedly betrayed him.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped other candidates from using the case against him.
“My opponents have spent millions spreading lies to deliberately mislead voters,” he wrote on social media on Thursday. “Today confirms what I’ve said from day one: I did nothing wrong. The case is closed.”
Meanwhile, attorney Scott also said Thursday that Williamson assumed, based on his conversations with McCluskey, that McCluskey had talked to Becerra about the concept of money transfers. Text messages in court records show a brief and vague exchange between McCluskey and Williamson that supports this.
Scott said Williamson never spoke directly to Becerra about the plan.
This makes it the distinct possibility that Williamson believed Becerra knew what was going on – but he never asked him. Dumb? Perhaps. But Williamson is generally no fool.
“Based on the understanding McCluskey gave my client, it was OK to proceed,” Scott said.
Becerra has repeatedly said that he believed the $10,000 per month was a legitimate fee to be paid for managing the money in the inactive account while he could not do so — though it is a sum well above the typical amount for such work, as my colleague Dakota Smith has reported.
Becerra has also repeatedly used some variation of the “case closed” line, seemingly hoping to move on from this scandal without any answers.
But at the very least, it deserves some kind of mea culpa or lessons learned from Becerra, a stronger conversation than the brush-off it’s getting. Because either McCluskey is a con man who rolled both Becerra and Williamson into believing that what was happening was kosher with completely different stories, or someone is not being completely honest.
Did Becerra ever question why it was costing so much to manage an account with almost no activity? Did he ever wonder what Williamson was doing to earn so much money? Should he have seen red flags, even with a trusted advisor, with his decades of legal and political experience? Or is Williamson, facing punishment, trying to paint herself in a sympathetic light?
“I’m not trying to portray my client as a victim,” McGregor said. “He has accepted responsibility for his actions by pleading guilty today. He is now a convicted felon. So you know, we’re not trying to do anything to get away from him.”
Williamson may have danced away, but the music is still playing, and the fancy footwork of politics continues.
