{"id":1049,"date":"2026-05-14T23:41:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:41:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:41:58","slug":"california-democrat-linked-to-newsom-and-becerra-pleads-guilty-to-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/?p=1049","title":{"rendered":"California Democrat linked to Newsom and Becerra pleads guilty to fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dana Williamson, who has ties to Gavin Newsom, conspired to steal gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra\u2019s campaign funds<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2026\/feb\/17\/sign-up-for-the-breaking-news-us-email-to-get-newsletter-alerts-direct-to-your-inbox?utm_medium=ACQUISITIONS_STANDFIRST&amp;utm_campaign=BN22326&amp;utm_content=signup&amp;utm_term=standfirst&amp;utm_source=GUARDIAN_WEB\">Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email<\/a><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Dana Williamson, a top <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/california\">California<\/a> political strategist with ties to the state\u2019s governor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/gavin-newsom\">Gavin Newsom<\/a>, and gubernatorial hopeful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/apr\/19\/xavier-becerra-california-governor-interview\">Xavier Becerra<\/a>, pleaded guilty on Thursday to fraud charges, an admission that is poised to fuel other candidates\u2019 attacks in the race.<\/p>\n<p>Federal authorities say Williamson conspired to steal $225,000 from a dormant campaign account belonging to Becerra, who was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-edca\/media\/1440761\/dl?inline\">not named<\/a> in the plea deal, and divert the money to his chief of staff, Sean McCluskie.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/may\/14\/dana-williamson-california-democrat-strategist-fraud\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dana Williamson, who has ties to Gavin Newsom, conspired to steal gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra\u2019s campaign funds Sign<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}