Some of California’s most powerful progressive politicians received millions of dollars in donations from individuals convicted of crimes, according to a new book.
In Fool’s Gold, journalists Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter expose the mutually beneficial relationship between these fraudsters and their political allies.
Crabtree and McFatter found hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Adam Schiff, former vice president Kamala Harris, former governor Jerry Brown, and others that came from individuals found guilty of bribery, pedophilia, fraud, and extortion.
In 2014 and 2018, Newsom received nearly $100k in campaign donations from Tom Girardi, a California attorney and Democrat party power player. During Newsom’s lieutenant governor campaign, Girardi donated $8,500, and in 2018, Girardi contributed $87,600 to his gubernatorial campaign.
Girardi and his then-wife Erika Jayne were longtime friends of Newsom. Reportedly, Girardi had a direct line to Newsom, and Jayne claimed to have known Newsom for “a long time.”
In 2024, Girardi was found guilty of embezzling tens of millions of dollars from his clients in a decade-long scheme. From October 2010 to the end of 2020, Girardi failed to pay clients and diverted these funds into his wife’s business, EJ Global, which accounted for $341,000 in political contributions between 2012 and 2018. One lawsuit alleged that Girardi had operated “the largest criminal racketeering enterprise in the history of plaintiff’s law.”
In 2018, Schiff also received a donation from EJ Global, Tom Girardi’s wife’s business that had received funds that had been misappropriated by her husband.
In another instance, an Armenian-American named Edgar Sargsyan, who worked with the notorious Lev “The Lion” Dermen, donated to Gavin Newsom through his law firm, the Pillar Law Group.
During Newsom’s run for California governor, Sargsyan hosted a fundraiser at his law office. At that fundraiser, Sargsyan hinted that Newsom would one day be governor of California. Records indicate that Sargsyan gave Newsom’s campaign $55,000 between 2016-2018 through Pillar Law. After Sargsyan’s legal issues became public, Newsom is on record as only returning $15,000 of the donations.
After the fundraiser, Sargysan sent a text saying that he and Newsom “talked about everything—including Dermen.” The exact contents of this conversation are unknown, but what we do know is that when the FBI arrested the Lion and Sargysan, Sargysan served a six-month sentence, while others involved in the affair received harsher sentences.
Our research shows that Edgar Sargsyan was scamming Dermen through fraudulent loans to the Pillar Law trust. Sargysan presented Dermen with fake loans to scam The Lion to the tune of $23 million.
Adam Schiff, a veteran U.S. representative who was elected to the U.S. Senate in November, also received campaign donations from individuals convicted of crimes. Andy Khawaja was charged with bank and credit card fraud in connection with his company, Allied Wallet. As of this writing, Khawaja is a fugitive from the U.S. While Allied Wallet was under investigation by the FBI, Adam Schiff accepted $36,000 in donations.
These donations from individuals who have been convicted of crimes – totaling close to $3 million – to high-profile California progressives, like Gavin Newsom, Adam Schiff, and others, warrant further investigation.
