Xavier Becerra walked onto the debate stage at East Los Angeles College Auditorium in Monterey Park on May 5 already playing defense. Hours earlier, two of his former employees had pleaded guilty to stealing $225,000 from one of his dormant campaign accounts, and his rivals, Republican and Democrat alike, were ready to make him answer for it.
The timing could hardly have been worse for the Democratic frontrunner in the race to replace outgoing California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Sean McCluskie, Becerra's former chief of staff, and Dana Williamson, a prominent California Democratic political strategist, both entered guilty pleas the same day the candidates gathered for a televised gubernatorial debate. The scandal landed squarely in the middle of a primary season with a June 2 election date fast approaching and a November 3 general election beyond that.
Becerra, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2025, posted a statement ahead of the debate: "I did nothing wrong. Case closed." His opponents did not agree that the case was closed, not by a long shot.
Steve Hilton, the Republican frontrunner in the crowded field, went directly at Becerra during the debate, as Fox News Digital reported.
"Today we learned that he knew about illegal and improper payments from his campaign account to his former chief of staff."
Hilton did not stop there. He told Becerra, in a moment that was personal in tone but pointed in substance:
"Honestly, it pains me to say because I like you personally, Xavier, but you shouldn't be on this stage. You shouldn't be in this race. You should be preparing your criminal defense."
That is an extraordinary statement to make to a former cabinet secretary on live television. But the facts that prompted it are equally extraordinary. Federal prosecutors said McCluskie and Williamson withdrew payments in increments of $7,500 to $10,000 from Becerra's war chest between 2022 and 2024, a period during which Becerra was serving in Washington as HHS secretary. The money, prosecutors said, was used to supplement their salaries.
Under Federal Election Commission regulations, government employees are prohibited from using campaign funds for expenses unrelated to the election or official duties. The account in question was one Becerra had previously used to pursue a state-level office and was no longer active for campaign purposes.
The sharpest legal analysis came not from the Republican side of the stage but from fellow Democrat Katie Porter, the former congresswoman. Porter methodically dismantled Becerra's defense, that he had not been named in the case, by drawing on her own legal training and the plain language of the charging documents.
"What the quote was, was that you had not been mentioned in the charging documents. But as you know, that does not preclude, because you are also a trained attorney, you know that does not preclude an indictment from being issued against you."
Then Porter drove the point home with a line that left the door wide open to further legal jeopardy for Becerra:
"We do not know what Dana Williamson said about your involvement, and the government will have the ability to reveal that later."
Becerra responded to the onslaught by telling rivals to "accept the facts," as the Associated Press reported. But Porter's point was precisely that the facts are not yet fully known, and that the absence of a charge today does not mean the absence of one tomorrow.
This kind of intra-party fracturing among Democrats has become an increasingly familiar pattern. When your own party's candidates are telling you to prepare a criminal defense, the old playbook of circling the wagons has clearly broken down.
The mechanics of the theft, as described by prosecutors, are straightforward. McCluskie and Williamson allegedly siphoned money from one of Becerra's dormant state campaign accounts by making withdrawals in carefully sized increments, $7,500 to $10,000 at a time, over a two-year period from 2022 to 2024. The purpose, prosecutors said, was to boost McCluskie's pay after he moved to Washington.
Williamson agreed to plead guilty to three charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, as Breitbart reported. McCluskie had previously signed a plea agreement admitting to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud and agreed to repay the full $225,000 taken from the account.
The question that hung over the debate stage, and that Porter articulated most directly, is what Becerra knew and when he knew it. His war chest was being drained in regular intervals over two years. His former chief of staff was the one making the withdrawals. And Becerra, a trained attorney who served in the California State Assembly from 1990 to 1992, held a seat in the U.S. House from 1993 to 2017, and served as California attorney general from 2017 to 2021, is not someone unfamiliar with campaign finance law.
In November, when the scandal first surfaced, Becerra called the "accusations of impropriety by a long-serving trusted adviser" a "gut punch," as the Washington Times reported. The language of personal betrayal is familiar in political scandals. It is also, as Porter noted, not the same thing as legal exoneration.
The California governor's race already featured a crowded field. The debate stage included not only Becerra, Hilton, and Porter but also Democrats Antonio Villaraigosa and Tom Steyer and Republican Chad Bianco. With the June 2 primary set to winnow the field to two finalists, the timing of the guilty pleas could not have been more damaging to Becerra's frontrunner status.
Becerra's political biography is long and deeply embedded in California Democratic politics. Three decades of public service, state legislator, congressman, attorney general, federal cabinet secretary, gave him the kind of résumé that ordinarily makes a gubernatorial candidate formidable. But résumés do not answer questions about what happened to $225,000 in campaign funds.
The scandal also carries broader implications for a California Democratic establishment that has already been watching nervously as the governor's race takes unexpected turns. Neither Becerra nor Newsom has been formally implicated in the theft, but the fact that a top aide connected to both men pleaded guilty to bank fraud conspiracy is the kind of development that erodes public trust in an entire political network, not just one candidate.
And that erosion matters in a state where one-party dominance has long insulated Democratic officials from the kind of accountability that competitive elections impose. When the only serious challenge comes from within your own party, as Porter demonstrated, the discomfort is bipartisan in effect, even if not in origin.
The open questions are significant. What specific charges were filed, and in which court? What did Williamson tell prosecutors about Becerra's involvement, if anything? Will the government pursue further action? Becerra says "case closed." The legal system may not agree.
This is not an isolated episode of Democratic officials facing federal corruption scrutiny. From coast to coast, voters are watching elected leaders and their inner circles face legal consequences for conduct that, at minimum, reflects a casual attitude toward other people's money, in this case, campaign donors' money.
Hilton's call for Becerra to leave the race may have been the most dramatic moment of the debate. But Porter's quiet legal dissection may prove more consequential. She reminded Becerra, and every voter watching, that the absence of a charge is not the presence of innocence. Prosecutors have plea agreements in hand. Cooperating witnesses have stories to tell. And the government, as Porter put it, "will have the ability to reveal that later."
Becerra built a career on the institutional machinery of the Democratic Party in California. Now that machinery's own operators have admitted to stealing from him, or through him, and the man who wants to be governor can offer nothing more than four words: "I did nothing wrong."
California voters will decide soon enough whether that answer is good enough. Based on what happened on that debate stage, Becerra's own fellow Democrats have already made up their minds.