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Tag: gen. rob bonta

  • California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta opts against running for governor. Again.

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    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Sunday that he would not run for California governor, a decision grounded in his belief that his legal efforts combating the Trump administration as the state’s top prosecutor are paramount at this moment in history.

    “Watching this dystopian horror come to life has reaffirmed something I feel in every fiber of my being: in this moment, my place is here — shielding Californians from the most brazen attacks on our rights and our families,” Bonta said in a statement. “My vision for the California Department of Justice is that we remain the nation’s largest and most powerful check on power.”

    Bonta said that President Trump’s blocking of welfare funds to California and the fatal shooting of a Minnesota mother of three last week by a federal immigration agent cemented his decision to seek reelection to his current post, according to Politico, which first reported that Bonta would not run for governor.

    Bonta, 53, a former state lawmaker and a close political ally to Gov. Gavin Newsom, has served as the state’s top law enforcement official since Newsom appointed him to the position in 2021. In the last year, his office has sued the Trump administration more than 50 times — a track record that would probably have served him well had he decided to run in a state where Trump has lost three times and has sky-high disapproval ratings.

    Bonta in 2024 said that he was considering running. Then in February he announced he had ruled it out and was focused instead on doing the job of attorney general, which he considers especially important under the Trump administration. Then, both former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced they would not run for governor, and Bonta began reconsidering, he said.

    “I had two horses in the governor’s race already,” Bonta told The Times in November. “They decided not to get involved in the end. … The race is fundamentally different today, right?”

    The race for California governor remains wide open. Newsom is serving the final year of his second term and is barred from running again because of term limits. Newsom has said he is considering a run for president in 2028.

    Former Rep. Katie Porter — an early leader in polls — late last year faltered after videos emerged of her screaming at an aide and berating a reporter. The videos contributed to her dropping behind Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, in a November poll released by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

    Porter rebounded a bit toward the end of the year, a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed, however none of the candidates has secured a majority of support and many voters remain undecided.

    California hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 2006, Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans in the state, and many are seething with anger over Trump and looking for Democratic candidates willing to fight back against the current administration.

    Bonta has faced questions in recent months about spending about $468,000 in campaign funds on legal advice last year as he spoke to federal investigators about alleged corruption involving former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who was charged in an alleged bribery scheme involving local businessmen David Trung Duong and Andy Hung Duong. All three have pleaded not guilty.

    According to his political consultant Dan Newman, Bonta — who had received campaign donations from the Duong family — was approached by investigators because he was initially viewed as a “possible victim” in the alleged scheme, though that was later ruled out. Bonta has since returned $155,000 in campaign contributions from the Duong family, according to news reports.

    Bonta is the son of civil rights activists Warren Bonta, a white native Californian, and Cynthia Bonta, a native of the Philippines who immigrated to the U.S. on a scholarship in 1965. Bonta, a U.S. citizen, was born in Quezon City, Philippines, in 1972, when his parents were working there as missionaries, and immigrated with his family to California as an infant.

    In 2012, Bonta was elected to represent Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro as the first Filipino American to serve in California’s Legislature. In Sacramento, he pursued a string of criminal justice reforms and developed a record as one of the body’s most liberal members.

    Bonta is married to Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), who succeeded him in the state Assembly, and the couple have three children.

    Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

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    Kevin Rector, Seema Mehta

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  • Pondering a run for governor, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta faces questions about legal spending

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    As California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta ponders a run for governor, he faces scrutiny for his ties to people central to a federal corruption investigation in Oakland and payments to private attorneys.

    Bonta has not been accused of impropriety, but the questions come at an inopportune time for Democrat, who says he is reassessing a gubernatorial bid after repeatedly dismissing a run earlier this year.

    Bonta said the decisions by former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla not to seek the office altered the contours of the race.

    “I had two horses in the governor’s race already,” Bonta said in an interview with The Times on Friday. “They decided not to get involved in the end. … The race is fundamentally different today, right?”

    Bonta said he has received significant encouragement to join the crowded gubernatorial field and that he expects to make a decision “definitely sooner rather than later.” Political advisors to the 54-year-old Alameda politician have been reaching out to powerful Democrats across the state to gauge his possible support.

    Historically, serving as California attorney general has been a launching pad to higher office or a top post in Washington. Harris, elected to two terms as the state attorney general, was later elected to the U.S. Senate and then as vice president. Jerry Brown served in the post before voters elected him for a second go-around as governor in 2010. Earl Warren later became the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

    Bonta, the first Filipino American to serve as the state’s top law enforcement official, was appointed in March 2021 by Gov. Gavin Newsom after Xavier Becerra resigned to become U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. Bonta easily won election as attorney general in 2022.

    Bonta was a deputy city attorney in San Francisco and vice mayor for the city of Alameda before being elected to the state Assembly in 2012. During his tenure representing the Alameda area, Bonta developed a reputation as a progressive willing to push policies to strengthen tenants’ rights and to reform the criminal justice system.

    In his role as the state’s top law enforcement official, Bonta has aggressively fought President Trump’s policies and actions, filing 46 lawsuits against the administration.

    Bonta also faced controversy this past week in what Bonta’s advisers say they suspect is an attempt to damage him as he considers a potential run.

    “Political hacks understand it’s actually a badge of respect, almost an endorsement. Clearly others fear him,” said veteran Democratic strategist Dan Newman, a Bonta adviser.

    On Monday, KCRA reported that Bonta had spent nearly $500,000 in campaign funds last year on personal lawyers to represent him in dealings with federal investigators working on a public corruption probe in Oakland.

    On Thursday, the website East Bay Insider reported that as that probe was heating up in spring 2024, Bonta had received a letter from an Oakland businessman warning him that he might soon be subject to blackmail.

    The letter writer, Mario Juarez, warned Bonta that another businessman, Andy Duong, possessed “a recording of you in a compromising situation.”

    Duong was later indicted, along with his father David Duong and former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, on federal bribery charges. All have pleaded not guilty. An attorney for David Duong this week said that Juarez, who is widely believed to be an informant in the case against the Duongs and Thao, was not credible. Juarez could not be reached for comment.

    Bonta said his legal expenditures came about after he began speaking with the U.S. Attorney’s office, who approached him because prosecutors thought he could be a victim of blackmail or extortion. Bonta said the outreach came after he already had turned over the letter he had received from Juarez to law enforcement.

    Bonta said he hired lawyers to help him review information in his possession that could be helpful to federal investigators.

    “I wanted to get them all the information that they wanted, that they needed, give it to him as fast as as I could, to assist, to help,” Bonta said. “Maybe I had a puzzle piece or two that could assist them in their investigation.”

    He said he may have made “an audible gasp” when he saw the legal bill, but that it was necessary to quickly turn over all documents and communications that could be relevant to the federal investigation.

    “The billing rate is high or not insignificant at private law firms,” Bonta said. “We were moving quickly to be as responsive as possible, to be as helpful as possible, to assist as as much as possible, and that meant multiple attorneys working a lot of hours.”

    Bonta said the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission also has alerted him that it received a complaint against him. Bonta and his advisers believe is about the use of campaign funds to pay the legal expenses and suspect it was filed by the campaign of a current gubernatorial candidate.

    “We’re not worried,” Bonta said. “That’s politics.”

    Asked whether these news stories could create obstacles to a potential gubernatorial campaign, Bonta pushed back against any assertion that he may have “baggage.” He said he was assisting federal prosecutors with their investigation with the hopes of holding people accountable.

    “That’s what I would expect anyone to do, certainly someone who is committed as I am to public safety.,” he said. “That’s my job, to assist, to support, to provide information, to help.”

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    Seema Mehta, Jessica Garrison

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  • Bonta ‘disappointed’ by Supreme Court ruling on L.A. immigration raids

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    California’s top law enforcement official has weighed in on Monday‘s controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling on immigration enforcement.

    Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta condemned the decision, which clears the way for immigration agents to stop and question people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally based solely on information such as their perceived race or place of employment.

    Speaking at a news conference Monday in downtown L.A., Bonta said he agreed with claims the ACLU made in its lawsuit against the Trump administration. He called indiscriminate tactics used to make immigration arrests a violation of the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

    Bonta said he thinks it is unconstitutional “for ICE agents, federal immigration officers, to use race, the inability to speak English, location or perceived occupation to … stop and detain, search, seize Californians.”

    He also decried what he described as the Supreme Court’s increasing reliance on its emergency docket, which he said often obscures the justices’ decision-making.

    “It’s disappointing,” he said. “And the emergency docket has been used more and more. You often don’t know who has voted and how. There’s no argument. There’s no written opinion.”

    Bonta called Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s opinion “very disturbing.”

    The Trump-appointed justice argued that because many people who do day labor in fields such as construction or farming, engagement in such work could be useful in helping immigrant agents determine which people to stop.

    Bonta said the practice enables “the use of race to potentially discriminate,” saying “it is disturbing and it is troubling.”

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    Connor Sheets, Sandra McDonald

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