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Gavin Newsom wants to jail you for exposing welfare fraud?!

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by Frank Holmes, reporter

Republicans have done such a great job exposing illegal welfare fraud that Democratic leaders in the bluest states are getting the jail cells ready.

They want silence the journalists who uncovered fraud… or they face prison time.

Inside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California, Democrats have introduced a bill to fine or imprison people like investigative journalist Nick Shirley after he blew the lid off Somali-run “learing” centers in Minneapolis and phony hospice programs in Los Angeles.

What’s more, the identity of the person who sponsored the bill may give a hint at who the Democratic Party sees as a future presidential candidate.

California Assembly Bill 2624 would slap a $10,000 fine and possible jail time on anyone who posts video or other online content that could violate the “privacy” of “immigration support services providers.” The definition includes non-governmental organizations, lawyers who help illegals lie their way into asylum status, and “health care” facilities (like hospices).

Groups that cater to illegal aliens and others in the Left Coast’s immigrant community “have faced doxxing, courthouse targeting, online harassment, anti-immigrant vigilante threats, and coordinated campaigns,” says the bill.

Anyone who exposes fraudsters to this so-called “harassment” can do time behind bars—and the definition of harassment is as wide as immigrant welfare fraud itself.

“Harassment is repeated, unreasonable, and unwelcome conduct” which “may include, but is not limited to, following, stalking, telephone calls, or written correspondence,” the bill states.

That bill is aimed squarely at Shirley, who posted a video claiming to have discovered $170 million in fraud at Los Angeles-area hospices last month. That came less than three months after he documented millions in Somali fraud in the Twin Cities.

The bill’s innocent-sounding language didn’t fool anyone.

“California Democrats are trying to intimidate citizen watchdog journalists and protect waste and fraud happening in far-Left-wing NGOs,” said California State Senator Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego. “Instead of fixing the fraud problems being uncovered, Sacramento politicians are trying to shut down the people exposing them.”

He called A.B. 2624 the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”

“The upshot is that people hiding their taxpayer-grifting fake daycares, overpaid hospice centers — that have an over 50% survival rate — and other colossal fiscal black holes will be shielded by Democrat,” wrote Victoria Taft on PJ Media. “Less information, silencing the media, jailing reporters, fining them, and protecting illegal aliens. This is what democracy looks like … to Democrats.”

“California legislators are trying to make investigating fraud illegal,” said Elon Musk.

The political implications are clear for Newsom, who is salivating over the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination and isn’t about to let things like gross incompetence, corruption, and negligence stand in his way.

The bill comes just as the Trump administration’s anti-fraud task force, led by Vice President J.D. Vance, suspended 447 hospices in Los Angeles accused of more than $600 million in fraud.

“A lot more is going to be happening in the future,” Vance told a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia on Tuesday evening. “The approach that we’ve taken in the last couple of months is: No amount of fraud is too big or too small. If you’re defrauding the taxpayer you ought to go to prison, and anybody who’s helping you ought to go to prison, too.”

Incredibly, California’s highest-ranked Democrats claimed they beat Vance in their efforts to rein in fraud—and even claimed President Donald Trump financially benefited from the grift in their state.

“While healthcare fraud might be President Trump’s shiny new political talking point, California DOJ has been going after healthcare fraud since 1979. For decades. Trump is late to the party,” claimed Attorney General Rob Bonta, alleging that Bonta had been “prosecuting them, sending them to prison” for years.

Earlier this month, Bonta bragged that he finally cut off funding…to 21 fraudster and arrested 10 of them.

“This is a perfect example that we have taken a firm stand to investigate, prosecute, and shut down hospice fraud wherever it exists,” said Bonta.

The AG’s office took pride that, since Newsom named him attorney general in 2021, Bonta has “conducted 294 hospice-related investigations, filed 119 hospice-related criminal cases, and secured 51 hospice-related convictions.”

“We’re not looking for bright lights on this,” said Bonta.

But J.D. Vance identified another 447 in less than a month.

What Bonta’s statement actually highlighted how much fraud has taken place under Democrats’ noses, or with their cooperation. And it proves Vance dead right.

After all, Bonta claims the 21 people he busted stole the identities of people who live in other states, enrolled them as hospice “patients,” and collected $267 million in ill-gotten taxpayer funds. But Vance found more than twice that much in one-sixty-third the time.

If anything, Newsom went to ridiculous lengths to try to one-up President Trump.

“For years, California has led the charge to protect public programs from fraud and abuse,” the slick Newsom claimed. “Since these are state charges, Donald Trump cannot pardon these individuals in exchange for campaign donations,” said Newsom, probably out of one side of his mouth.

But if Newsom wants to expose welfare abuse, why doesn’t he oppose this law?

“If this bill becomes law, the message is clear to every journalist in California: expose corruption and you will be punished,” said DeMaio.

But Democrats may hear a deeper, hidden message: Prosecute the Left’s enemies, and you will be rewarded.

Obviously, Newsom benefits politically if the scandal just goes away under threat of imprisonment.

But the bill’s sponsor hints at just who it is Democrats hope to propel to D.C.—and it isn’t Newsom.

The bill was introduced by none other than State Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D-Oakland… the wife of California’s top cop, Rob Bonta.

It’s also interesting that the last time California prosecuted undercover investigative journalists—a pro-life duo who exposed Planned Parenthood dismember babies and selling the body parts—the state Attorney General was Kamala Harris.

Harris went to the Senate and two failed presidential campaigns, and she just told Al Sharpton’s National Action Network that she’s “thinking about” a third attempt.

Whether Democrats intend for Bonta to skyrocket to the presidency like Barack Obama or climb the ladder by taking another office first, Harris may have to face the younger, fresher, more competent Rob Bonta as early as 2028.

About the Author

Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”