Nightmare For Newsom: Bombshell Report Regarding FireAid Fraud Drops On Pallisades Fire Anniversary
Will California Gov. Gavin Newsom have the backbone to show up in Pacific Palisades on Wednesday morning for the first anniversary of the Palisades Fire — or will he keep using the victims as political props while chasing his next ambition? That’s the question hanging over a community that lost everything, as residents gather to remember those who were killed and reflect on a disaster the governor was quick to exploit but slow to meaningfully address.
Community groups are planning multiple events to mark the anniversary, led by two starkly different gatherings. The White Glove Flag Presentation and Remembrance Ceremony will honor the twelve Palisadians who lost their lives and recognize the neighbors, volunteers, and first responders who stepped in as institutions failed, helping the community recover and rebuild. In contrast, the They Let Us Burn rally — headlined by Palisades Fire victim Heidi Montag — will demand accountability for what organizers call a catastrophic collapse of prevention, basic precaution, and leadership, arguing the disaster was not an act of nature but the predictable result of government negligence.
Residents of Pacific Palisades and Altadena — the community devastated by the Eaton Fire just one day after the Palisades Fire — are seething at Gov. Gavin Newsom over the systemic failures that fueled the blaze and the suffocating bureaucratic mess they’re still trapped in. Their anger has only grown as Newsom continues to use fire victims as political props, folding their suffering into his partisan battles and campaign ambitions, most recently during a soft-focus interview Monday with MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff.
Last week, Newsom’s team informed the New York Post that he will be in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday to meet with “wildfire survivors.” However, they did not provide details about which survivors he will meet or whether he plans to engage in any public events.
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If he’s wise, he’ll steer clear of Pacific Palisades. Several who live in that community—some lost everything, while others managed to save their homes—and none of them are keen on having him show up to make a spectacle of himself and take all the attention.
San Francisco State University political science professor Jason McDaniel told the Post that the fallout from the wildfires, combined with rising housing and homeowner’s insurance costs, “could be a ticking time bomb for Gavin Newsom’s campaign. This is not Rudy Giuliani after 9/11. It is a difficult political narrative, and it’s become more likely to be used [as] a sign of California mismanagement.” He then warned that “Grandstanding or making political hay out of the fire anniversary won’t be well-received.”
Newsom appears uninterested in heeding McDaniel’s advice, opting instead for a familiar political reflex: blame Trump. Returning to his MS NOW interview, Newsom claimed that Trump had “not even lifted a finger” to help. That claim ignores a stubborn timeline. The fire occurred in the final weeks of Joe Biden’s floundering presidency, while large-scale debris removal — fully funded and executed by the federal government through FEMA, EPA, and the Army Corps of Engineers — did not begin until February, after Trump was inaugurated.
Predictably, Newsom now treats that federally led cleanup as a political photo op, claiming credit for work his administration neither organized nor paid for. And there’s also this: California is his state; he claimed he could handle the crime problems without Trump, but now it’s Trump’s fault his over-regulated, Democrat-owned cities created the perfect firestorm to destroy entire neighborhoods?
Not only that, but he was praising Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in February:
“I will say this. This is true and it’s factual and you gotta call balls and strikes. Lee Zeldin is doing an amazing job. He’s on the ground today in Los Angeles. They are moving the first phase of the debris removal at record pace. And I think it’s that mindset that we brought to the meeting and the mindset that came out of that meeting. The President wants to do something that’s never been done, and that is, address this crisis with a degree of sophistication and focus, to get the job done and get people’s lives back.”
This guy.
Lately, Newsom has been saturating social media and friendly left-wing press interviews with claims that Donald Trump and Congress are deliberately stalling critical federal aid. The accusations have not gone unanswered: members of the administration are now pushing back publicly, disputing Newsom’s narrative and accusing him of misrepresenting both the facts and the process to deflect from his own failures.
Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler, who’s actually been to the Palisades to work directly with victims, said, “In FY25, Los Angeles received $3.2 BILLION in SBA disaster loans. Despite historic relief funding by @SBAgov and hazardous material removal by @EPA, only a few survivors have been allowed to start rebuilding due to a failure of local permitting. One year later, homeowners and small business owners are still standing in the rubble, while California’s leaders keep them stranded in red tape.”
And, the $34 billion in federal aid Newsom is asking for? Yeah, as one fire victim points out, is not for the fire victims: “The bulk goes to NGOs and patronage groups. It’s like FireAid all over.”
And maybe that’s exactly why it hasn’t been approved.
Coincidentally — or not — on Tuesday afternoon Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee released interim findings from their investigation into what happened to the $100 million in FireAid donations raised in the immediate aftermath of the fires, raising fresh questions about transparency, oversight, and where the money actually went. They found: “FireAid has diverted donations to third-party groups instead of providing direct relief to victims of the fires.” It added:
FireAid advertised that all donations raised during its benefit concert would go directly to victims of the California wildfires. Unfortunately, this was not the case. To date, FireAid has granted $75 million of the $100 million raised to a total of 188 non-profits, including $100,000 for voter participation efforts for Native Americans, $550,000 to groups involved in political advocacy, an unknown amount of money toward illegal aliens, $100,000 to podcasters, and over $500,000 for bonuses, salaries, and consultants for non-profit organizations.
In addition, the report includes some very infuriated uses for the money.
“A grant report dated February 2025 included a list of CORE’s ‘priority groups’ that it wanted to help with money [$250,000] it received from FireAid. Among those priority groups were ‘Undocumented Migrants’ because ‘this group is at high risk of housing instability, economic hardship, exploitation, and homelessness.'”
If there truly were “undocumented migrants” who lost homes in the fires, it would be far cheaper to enforce existing law and send them home than to put taxpayers on the hook for long-term housing vouchers. But let’s be honest: there likely weren’t many illegal aliens living in Pacific Palisades or Altadena to begin with. The claim feels less like a reflection of reality and more like a convenient talking point designed to redirect sympathy — and public funds — away from the actual residents who lost everything.
Newsom blaming Trump for this is a sick joke but of course it’s no laughing matter, especially now that it appears the Justice Department is getting very interested in all the ‘alleged’ fraud that Jordan’s committee may have found and other fraudulent activity akin to what’s taking place in Minnesota.
IT ALL CAME OUT' – GAVIN NEWSOM BLOWS UP AFTER BEING EXPOSED LIVE ON AIR
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As the 2028 presidential election cycle rapidly approaches, life is getting increasingly complicated for California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The ambitious Democrat, widely expected to declare his candidacy for his party's highest nomination, is currently drowning in a massive, rapidly expanding ethics scandal centered on hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable corporate donations. As federal investigators continue to circle both the governor and his wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the sheer scale of his fundraising tactics is raising serious alarm bells across the political spectrum.
At the absolute center of this controversy is Newsom’s unprecedented and unapologetic use of "behested payments"—a controversial practice in California law that allows elected officials to personally solicit massive, unlimited donations from deep-pocketed corporations, wealthy individuals, and labor unions to fund specific charities or government initiatives.
While technically legal under the state's highly permissive rules, government watchdogs and ethics experts are fiercely arguing that these payments represent a glaring, dangerous loophole. It essentially allows special interests—many of whom have active, highly lucrative business before the state of California—to gain massive political influence and curry favor with the governor, entirely outside the strict boundaries of traditional campaign finance laws.
The $347 Million Man
According to official California disclosure records, the scale at which Newsom utilizes this loophole is utterly staggering. Since 2011, Newsom has reported soliciting more than $347 million in behested payments.
To put that massive figure into perspective, data from the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) reveals that all elected officials statewide combined directed roughly $556 million in behested payments between 2011 and 2026. Newsom alone accounted for nearly two-thirds—a whopping 62%—of that total.
By stark contrast, his predecessor, former Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, reportedly solicited a relatively modest $35 million in behested payments during his entire tenure.
"Behested payments are ripe for abuse," warned Sean McMorris of California Common Cause, pointing out the obvious ethical minefield created when powerful elected officials lean on organizations that have direct business before the government.
The Optics of Influence Peddling
The ethical concerns are not just hypothetical; they are rooted in a pattern of massive corporate donations followed by highly favorable state actions.
Public reports have raised serious questions about several major donors who opened their checkbooks at Newsom's behest and later benefited immensely from state contracts or policy decisions. For example, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare giant Blue Shield donated a staggering $20 million to initiatives heavily supported by Newsom. Shortly thereafter, the corporation was miraculously awarded a highly lucrative, no-bid state contract related to vaccine distribution.
Similarly, the Kaiser Foundation contributed nearly $10 million before securing a significantly expanded role in California’s massive Medi-Cal program. In another instance, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria donated millions to organizations associated with the governor and his wife’s initiatives. Later, they benefited significantly from favorable state decisions involving tribal gaming matters, including efforts to block a rival casino from opening nearby.
While proving an explicit, legal quid pro quo is notoriously difficult, critics argue that the actual transaction is irrelevant. The concern is that the system inherently encourages and rewards a "pay-to-play" culture. Assemblyman David Tangipa slammed the practice, describing behested payments as a blatant form of "political influence peddling," boldly arguing that just because the system is legal does not mean it isn't deeply corrupt.
The Family Business and Federal Heat
The issue has drawn even fiercer scrutiny because millions of these corporate dollars have been funneled directly into organizations tightly linked to the governor’s inner circle. Approximately $4.8 million in behested donations were routed to the California Partners Project, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. For many critics, corporate money flowing into a charity run by the governor's wife creates, at the very least, a glaring appearance of a massive conflict of interest.
The intense debate over this influence-peddling loophole comes at a highly precarious time for the governor. Newsom recently acknowledged that both he and his wife are currently the subjects of multiple, ongoing federal investigations. While neither has been charged with any wrongdoing, and the Department of Justice has remained completely tight-lipped about the exact nature of the inquiries, the specter of a federal probe casts a dark cloud over his 2028 presidential ambitions.
A "Laughable Slap on the Wrist"
Adding insult to injury for government transparency advocates, Newsom recently agreed to pay a $31,500 ethics fine handed down by the state's campaign finance watchdog, the FPPC. The fine was levied after the commission found that Newsom flagrantly failed to legally report 36 separate behested payments—totaling more than $5.6 million—within the required 30-day timeframe.
The late disclosures involved massive corporate donations solicited during the 2024 and 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, pulling in vast sums from corporate titans like BlackRock, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and Anthem Blue Cross. While Newsom's office brushed off the violation as a mere paperwork oversight during an emergency, critics blasted the $31,500 penalty as a "laughable slap on the wrist" for a wealthy politician manipulating a quarter-billion-dollar shadow fundraising system. This marks the second time Newsom has been fined for late reporting of these payments, having previously paid a $13,000 fine in 2024.
Supporters of the governor are quick to point out that these behested donations have funded critical public initiatives, including wildfire relief and charitable causes. However, the public benefit of those projects does absolutely nothing to eliminate the massive concerns surrounding transparency, corporate influence, and the ability of powerful special interests to funnel unlimited cash into causes promoted by the state's most powerful executive.
As Newsom attempts to position himself as the future of the Democratic Party, the growing scandal surrounding his $347 million loophole is forcing a national reckoning. The American people are left to wonder: if this is how Gavin Newsom runs California, how exactly would he run the country?
