WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security’s system for paying for detainee medical care has collapsed, records show, leaving a backlog of unpaid claims likely costing millions of dollars.
With a new payment system still not in place, advocates for immigrant detainees fear some are going without necessary treatment as medical providers near a year without compensation.
Newly released federal records reveal what that treatment could be for, detailing more than 233,000 claims for off-site medical and dental care between January and early October of 2025. The claims, for which Homeland Security spent $96 million, show detainees were treated for a wide variety of conditions, including strokes, pregnancy, suicide attempts and frostbite.
For years, Homeland Security relied on a unit of the Department of Veterans Affairs, its financial services center, to process reimbursement claims for detainee medical care. But since that arrangement abruptly ended Oct. 3, the company hired to create a new payment processing system has yet to start reimbursing the medical clinics, dental practices and pharmacies that treat detained patients.
The documents were released by the VA to the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act and shared exclusively with The Times. They paint the clearest picture yet of the off-site medical care received by immigrants in the custody of the federal government before the payment system fractured.
The old system used by Homeland Security was scrapped after critics questioned why the VA was processing paperwork for a different federal department.
During the Biden administration, Republicans claimed that the contract between Homeland Security and the VA took resources from veterans to facilitate healthcare for immigrants and introduced a bill to stop it.
Last year, with President Trump back in office, the VA wrote Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Aug. 19 to say that it would stop processing detainee medical claims by Feb. 28, 2026.
“This termination is necessary to reallocate resources to support mission-facing programs,” the letter states.
On Sept. 30, the right-wing Center to Advance Security in America filed a lawsuit against the VA seeking answers to a year-old request for records related to the alleged diversion of resources. The VA didn’t respond to requests for comment. But then-VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz told the Daily Signal that the department had, under President Biden, focused on unnecessary activities such as processing healthcare claims for immigrants.
“Under President Trump, the department has abandoned these radical liberal priorities and rededicated itself to providing the best possible care and benefits to the Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors we serve,” he said.
Three days after the lawsuit was filed, the VA stopped processing Homeland Security claims. Later that month, ICE awarded multimillion dollar no-bid contracts to two companies tasked with taking over claims processing: Acentra Health for healthcare services and Ardent Group for pharmacy services.
Federal law requires Homeland Security to provide medical care to the people in its custody. Those held by Customs and Border Protection near the border, or by ICE in the country’s interior, are civilly detained for the purpose of removal proceedings. ICE is holding more than 65,000 detainees as the agency touts record-high arrests this summer.
ICE and Customs and Border Protection rely on about 3,000 community-based providers and local hospitals, which submit about 300,000 claims annually for detainee care, according to ICE.
The claims outlined in the VA documents show ICE paid $77.3 million, 80% of the total, and CBP paid $19 million. Together, the agencies paid on average about $260 for off-site care per detainee from January to October 2025, a Times analysis found. By comparison, federal prisons in fiscal year 2025 spent about $2,700 per inmate on external medical care.
For ICE, medical conditions that had the highest number of claims included screenings for tuberculosis and other diseases and treatment for hypertension, chest pain and type 2 diabetes. Some of the highest-paid amounts related to treatment of psychosis, schizophrenia and sepsis.
More than a third of the claims for CBP — and more than half of the total paid amount — went to a category of claims called “injury, poisoning and certain consequences of external causes.” That includes traumatic injuries such as fractures, concussions and hemorrhages.
Among other notable claims are 2,267 for pregnancy, birth and maternal care, 1,793 for seizures and 419 for suicide or self-harm. The most expensive claim was $292,199 for treatment of leukemia.
Homeland Security did not return requests for comment but frequently says it provides comprehensive medical, dental and mental health care, which officials tout as the best healthcare many detainees ever received.
Dr. Amy Zeidan, an emergency medicine doctor and associate professor at Emory University who studies immigrant detainee health outcomes, said the VA data show detained immigrants require significant medical care. She said some of those entering detention facilities likely have chronic conditions and don’t get proper care, while others likely develop serious conditions while detained.
“There is a high burden of disease in detention facilities that we have always suspected but really had no evidence to support,” she said. “It’s not like these are people getting routine visits for mildly high blood pressure — these are people who require hospitalizations.”
“If claims are no longer being paid, this is a big problem because outside care is certainly needed,” she added.
The decision to end the processing agreement with the VA “created an emergency,” according to ICE officials. That phrase appears in a contracting document for Acentra Health that was first reported on by independent journalists through the newsletter Popular Information.
Several vendors expressed interest in the job, but ICE said a formal competition would take months and the lack of a way to process claims could delay necessary medical care, such as dialysis, prenatal care and chemotherapy.
ICE needed to come up with a new way to process medical claims “instantly” in order to “prevent any further medical complications or loss of life,” the contracting document states. “Off-site providers who are not paid timely may not accept new patients or continue to provide vital care and services.”
The ICE officials wrote that Acentra Health provides the same claims processing system used by the VA and would be able to restore claims processing services quickly.
Claims processing was slated to resume April 30, but providers still haven’t been paid.
The ICE Health Service Corps website says providers should “hold all claim submissions while we work to bring the new system online.”
Lindsey Rodarmer, public relations manager for Acentra Health, said the company’s role under its contract is solely to build out the claims processing system — not to start processing claims.
“The timeline for the completion of this project depends on factors beyond any single party, including two government shutdowns, funding lapses, and the timing of federal authorizations, all of which have impacted the project schedule,” Rodarmer said.
According to a federal contracting website, Acentra has been paid $44.6 million of its $67.5-million contract, which Rodarmer said was extended until Sept. 24. Ardent Group has been paid $26.7 million of its $42.6-million contract, which is slated to end Oct. 24.
In June, Homeland Security posted a request for information to identify other potential vendors. The agency wants companies to answer 29 questions. The first asks for a “realistic timeline” on when the processing of claims can begin.
Rodarmer said Acentra responded to the request for information and, if chosen, would begin paying out claims under the system it built.
Last month, Reps. Mark Takano (D-Riverside) and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) wrote to the leaders of the VA and Homeland Security seeking answers about when Acentra will begin processing reimbursements, whether any claims have been paid since Oct. 3, and how many detainees have had health complications or died because they were unable to access off-site healthcare. The lawmakers said the agencies haven’t responded.
In an interview, Ramirez said she believes the lack of payment for medical claims is directly tied to an increase in detainee deaths. At least 23 people have died in immigration custody this year. Last year the agency reported 33 in-custody deaths.
She said that without answers to the questions she raised with Takano, there’s no way to know what Homeland Security has been billing for and how much care has been put on hold.
“In our current system, if no one is paying for services, no one gets healthcare,” Ramirez said. “Since DHS and VA stopped processing medical claims nine months ago, it is clear that our neighbors are being deprived of necessary medical care in violation of the law.”
Meanwhile, detained immigrants and their supporters have raised increasing alarms over medical care provided by ICE.
ICE said Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo, 41, of El Salvador suffered a medical emergency on Saturday and was pronounced dead after being taken to a New Jersey hospital.
The agency said Lopez Cornejo had received proper medical care and was seen by medical professionals. His mother, however, told a local immigrant rights group that she believed he hadn’t received his medication for diabetes, high blood pressure and seizures.
In California, a court-appointed medical monitor issued a report last month finding that the state’s largest immigrant detention center repeatedly has delayed assessments, treatment and administration of medication for detainees. The center’s operator told The Times it was reviewing the report and that nothing matters more than the health, safety and well-being of people under its care.
At the California City Detention Facility, one man waited months for a surgery he never received. The 34-year-old man asked to be identified by his initials, A.S., over concerns about his immigration case.
A.S. said he tripped and broke an ankle while detained in late February. He was transported to a local hospital and placed in a cast.
Medical records show A.S. didn’t see a specialist until April 10, when it was determined he needed surgery. At an appointment June 1, A.S. said a doctor told him he had missed a scheduled operation, which medical records appear to confirm.
He said the doctor told him too much time had passed and the surgery no longer was possible because of risk of complications. The doctor ordered physical therapy, A.S. said, but medical records show he didn’t receive any.
A.S. was released from the detention center last month still limping and in pain. Unable to find work or pay to see a doctor, he has resorted to recycling cans and bottles to support himself.
“They knew about my situation — there were requests asking to be seen, there were complaints I had filed, so it’s not like they didn’t know,” A.S. said. “Instead, it’s as if they didn’t want to give me the medical attention.”
The European Central Bank (ECB) took the digital euro project into its next operational stage on Tuesday by naming 36 payment service providers to help test the future currency in a large-scale pilot programme beginning in the second half of 2027.
According to the ECB, the participants were selected from more than 50 applicants across the euro area and will work alongside the ECB and 19 of the euro area’s national central banks, excluding Bulgaria and Malta, during a 12-month testing exercise.
The pilot is intended to assess the digital euro’s technical infrastructure, operational processes and user experience, allowing person-to-person and person-to-business payments to be tested in both online and offline environments, before any decision is taken on issuing the currency.
The announcement moves the digital euro closer to practical testing with consumers, merchants and payment providers, making it one of the project’s most significant milestones since the ECB launched its preparation phase in late 2023.
The selected providers include traditional banks, digital banks and payment companies, with several of Europe’s largest financial institutions among those taking part, including Deutsche Bank, UniCredit, Revolut, Adyen and Stripe.
ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said the level of interest demonstrated that the payments industry was ready to help shape the project’s next phase.
“The strong market interest in the pilot shows the private sector’s readiness to engage actively and quickly advance with the digital euro project to strengthen the European payments landscape,” Cipollone stated.
“We look forward to deeper engagement as we work with and learn alongside European payment service providers in developing a secure, efficient and inclusive digital euro,” Cipollone concluded.
The pilot comes as negotiations continue between the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission on legislation that would establish the legal basis for a digital euro.
The ECB has consistently maintained that it cannot issue the currency unless the legislation is adopted by EU lawmakers.
Current planning foresees formal approval in 2027, followed by completion of the pilot and a possible public launch in 2029, although those timelines remain dependent on the legislative process.
The digital euro would be available free of charge to consumers through supervised payment providers and the ECB has repeatedly sought to counter concerns that it could lead to the disappearance of physical money or weaken privacy protections.
In the current plan for the launch, the digital euro would not pay interest and holdings would likely be capped to avoid significant outflows from commercial bank deposits.
Speaking to Euronews exclusively last week, ECB President Christine Lagarde welcomed the European Parliament’s decision to begin negotiations on the legislation and reiterated that the digital is intended to complement, rather than replace, cash.
“Cash and the digital euro will both be legal tender, which means that nowhere in Europe can someone say, ‘Sorry, I’m not taking your banknotes’,” Lagarde told The Europe Conversation with Maria Tadeo, reaffirming that cash would remain a permanent feature of Europe’s monetary system.
The digital euro is also designed to reduce Europe’s dependence on international payment providers and strengthen the bloc’s strategic autonomy in payments.
Lagarde also told Euronews that the project is about reinforcing Europe’s economic sovereignty as much as modernising payments, pointing to the bloc’s continued reliance on foreign-owned payment networks.
“We depend predominantly on US, but also sometimes Chinese, networks to organise payments. We need to have a European solution because we want to be sovereign at home,” Lagarde stated.
Gig platforms offer seamless checkout for buyers, but emerging market payouts remain broken for workers.
In June 2026, member states from more than 180 countries convened for the International Labour Conference to determine international labor standards for digital platform workers. However, even with those standards set, payments remain a big issue.
Imagine a freelance developer in Lagos, who successfully completes a project for a client in London on Upwork. While the client’s payment is secured instantly, the developer faces a mandatory five-day security hold on their funds, followed by conversion to Naira at unfavorable rates, and fees of up to $20 per withdrawal, all eroding a significant portion of their earnings.
The gig economy has taken off like a rocket around the world, making up for 46% of the global workforce in 2025. Global projections state that it is set to increase to $2.52 trillion by 2035 from $674 billion in 2026. And it is expanding aggressively in the Global South. According to recent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) numbers, emerging markets have growth rates of roughly 21% in India, 17% in Egypt, and 16% in Argentina and Brazil.
Platforms such as Uber Inc. for drivers and Upwork for freelancers offer great opportunities for a second or even a primary income. However, while these companies provide seamless purchasing options for their services, they have largely not adapted their payout structures for workers in emerging markets.
Beyond the lack of stability and control that can come with side hustles, paying workers simply and on time remains a challenge for many gig economy platforms.
Funds get stuck between payer and recipient as they navigate local currencies across fragmented banking and mobile money ecosystems, compliantly and at speed. For all the sophistication of modern payment infrastructure, the last mile of the payout stack remains one of the most technically underserved problems in the industry.
Paying is harder than it looks. There are dozens of local currencies, many with volatile exchange rates and limited convertibility. To pay in a timely, consistent manner, platforms must have local liquidity ready to go, which can be cumbersome when applied globally. Compliance complexities, such as know your consumer (KYC) and AML requirements, vary by region, while worker classification and tax withholding obligations differ.
Additionally, many workers rely on being paid via mobile money such as M-Pesa in Africa, digital wallets, and cash-out networks rather than bank accounts, which have low penetration in some regions.
There are no dominant payout rails, meaning a platform operating in Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil, and Colombia is working with M-Pesa, bank transfers, PIX, and PSE simultaneously. Each comes with unique settlement times, failure rates, and reconciliation requirements. These issues result in delays, unfavorable exchange rates and high cash-out fees that are all absorbed by workers.
Beyond a minor inconvenience, these issues can mean not eating or paying rent for some who live day to day. As a result, workers switch to whichever platform pays fastest, while platforms face churn and risk their local reputations. Marginal inefficiencies, such as failed transaction fees, can add up significantly for platforms such as Rappi and Glovo, which process millions of transactions per week.
Regulatory pressure is also building. The ILC conference this month will determine standards for digital platform workers, including employment classification, pay transparency, and social protection.
Platforms are exploring multiple solutions for workers’ payment issues in emerging markets.
Aggregator models with multiple partners are one model that helps, but simultaneously increases operational overheads, with ongoing liquidity issues. Local wallets that are pre-funded require capital and incur high management costs, making them a barrier of entry for small to medium businesses. Earned wage access ensures workers are paid on time; however, it doesn’t resolve fees. Partnerships with local in-market banks provide faster settlements, with platforms owning compliance and currency conversions.
Single APIs may increase costs for platforms; however, they handle the complexities of local rails, currencies, payment methods, and compliance across multiple markets, making it seamless for platforms to pay workers with minimal overhead.
It can’t be denied that side jobs and flexible working are an attractive opportunity for many, particularly in emerging markets. However, delayed payouts for workers who live paycheck to paycheck is one practical aspect that impedes on a stable standard of living and erodes trust. Those looking to expand their billion-dollar businesses must ensure that the experience is seamless not only for the customer but for all parties involved.
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Carlos Menendez, chief operating officer of dLocal, is a seasoned general manager with extensive global experience in creating and scaling businesses. Prior to dLocal, he spent 14 years at Mastercard, most recently as president of the Global Commercialization Office, and 14 years at Citi, serving senior roles such as COO of Western Europe Retail Banking, EMEA Bankcards regional director, and CFO of Citibank USA. He holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University, an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School, and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed off on a 100% state tax on money any Californians receive from Trump’s $1.8-billion “anti-weaponization” fund for his political allies.
Newsom unveiled his proposal in May, after Trump’s Justice Department said it would create a fund to compensate Trump’s allies who claim they have “suffered weaponization and lawfare” under Biden’s Justice Department.
The settlement fund was criticized by politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who described it as a “slush fund to pay people who assault cops.”
The fund remains in legal limbo. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Virginia extended a court-ordered block on the plan, which critics warned could be used to pay pardoned Jan. 6 rioters.
Fast-tracked into law as part of Senate Bill 122, Newsom’s plan imposes “a tax on any settlement fund payment from the federal Anti-Weaponization Fund, or any subsequent fund, settlement, or agreement, as provided, at a rate of 100%,” according to the bill text. The tax applies to all tax years between 2026 and 2030.
Newsom signed the bill Tuesday. In a statement, his office said the tax is meant to ensure that, should Trump’s fund proceed, California recipients won’t “receive favorable state treatment on those payments.”
“We believe democracy is worth defending, the rule of law matters, and public dollars should support victims—not those who attacked the very institutions that protect our freedoms,” Newsom said in the statement.
University of Southern California law professor Ariel Jurow Kleiman, an expert on tax law and policy, said that while Newsom’s tax is a “novel legal strategy,” she believes there is “no categorical legal restriction” preventing California from implementing it.
States have a “wide degree of discretion” to design their tax systems — including how they define income — so long as they do not violate their constitutions, Jurow Kleiman said.
If a California resident wanted to challenge the tax in court, they would need to show they were harmed by it to have standing to sue, according to Jurow Kleiman. That would mean receiving a payment from Trump’s settlement fund and then paying the 100% California tax. Unless the settlement fund is established and distributes payments, that scenario is unlikely.
While there have been proposals to levy a 100% tax on income above certain thresholds — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2023 said he supports a 100% tax on income exceeding $1 billion — Jurow Kleiman said she is not aware of any governments that have adopted such a policy.
WASHINGTON — Jennifer Siebel Newsom has spent more than a decade cultivating an identity distinct from her husband, Gov. Gavin Newsom, as an active documentary filmmaker and gender equity activist with her own organizations, staff and salary.
The 51-year-old calls herself California’s “first partner,” a title she coined herself to signal an equal footing with the governor and gender inclusivity.
Her independent streak has generated her a steady income. She earns money from a set of organizations she founded or controls. They include the Representation Project, a nonprofit that advocates for gender equity through film and education programs; Girls Club Entertainment, a for-profit production company she owns that holds the copyrights to her documentaries; and the California Partners Project, a second nonprofit that works closely with her government office and receives donations solicited by the governor.
Since its creation in 2020, the California Partners Project has received nearly $5.1 million from so-called “behested payments,” raising alarms over the years about the influence large companies have amassed in Sacramento.
California law allows officials to solicit donations to specific charitable or governmental causes when the payments are reported within 30 days. The public donation system, however, came under scrutiny in 2020 when payments made at Newsom’s behest — to a variety of organizations, not just the California Partners Project — ballooned to an unprecedented $226 million to help fund the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With no limit on how much money can be donated by organizations or individuals at the behest of the governor, millions of dollars flowed in to prop up public services during the pandemic and fund Newsom’s favored programs, including an effort to address homelessness and a public safety campaign promoting the importance of wearing masks. The top donor of Newsom-behested payments in 2020 was tech giant Facebook, which gave $27 million for gift cards that went to front-line healthcare workers and for public health ads.
“It’s not illegal, but it certainly pushes the bounds of campaign finance law, and the first couple has been doing this for some time,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University. “In this battle between Newsom and [President] Trump this makes their [the first couple’s] actions, these payments and the operation of the nonprofits a rich target for scrutiny.”
The Newsoms’ financial arrangements are now the subject of renewed scrutiny. The governor has accused the Trump administration — specifically, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service — of questioning their friends and former employees about him and his wife. The governor said the probes are politically motivated, a personal vendetta because he’s considering a run for president in 2028.
Newsom said he and his wife have nothing to hide, and promised to release all of his recent tax returns — though he has not announced when.
In turn, the governor has demanded that the Department of Justice release all records pertaining to the probe.
“The American people deserve to know who ordered this abuse of power and how far it goes,” the governor wrote on social media last week.
“These are dark days in our nation’s history when the leader of the free world spews animus openly and without shame — aiming to silence and destroy not only his political opponents, but their friends, colleagues, and families,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement to The Times. ”My husband and I will continue to push back on this vindictive attack — and I certainly will not let this distract me from the important work ahead to protect the health, wealth, and safety of women and children and give California kids the best start in life. Together, we can set an example of strong leadership that protects people rather than preys on them.”
To better understand the finances, here is a breakdown of how Siebel Newsom’s company and nonprofits are working.
Alongside the release of her first documentary, “Miss Representation,” in 2011, Siebel Newsom created her nonprofit, which originally shared the same name as her film. The organization licenses her films and reimburses costs to her production company.
The nonprofit earns some revenue from licensing the first partner’s documentaries for use in classrooms, college campuses and workplaces. Licensing for film screenings at schools starts at $49, while corporate licensing for her films starts at $995; purchase of screening rights also comes with curricula to facilitate discussions.
The Representation Project has earned more than $5.2 million in revenue from film screenings, licensing and speaking fees since 2011, according to a review of its tax filings.
The Representation Project is not required to disclose its donors but has received at least $2.6 million since 2014 from various charitable foundations that disclosed the gifts in their own tax filings. Several corporations that have had business before the state have donated to Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit, including Pacific Gas & Electric Co., AT&T and Kaiser Permanente.
Its past donors also include entrepreneur and progressive donor Susie Thompkins Buell, who is credited as a producer on several of Siebel Newsom’s documentaries, as well as the Marin Community Foundation and Onward Together, the political action organization founded by Hillary Clinton.
Four months after Newsom took office in 2019, the state Department of Education recommended that high schools screen two of his wife’s films, “Miss Representation” and “The Mask You Live In,” a move that has garnered criticism from conservative media outlets. The state said the films “can help facilitate a discussion about the impact of mass media and gender socialization on self-image and relationships with others.”
Though it does not specify where its films have been licensed, the nonprofit boasts in annual impact reports that its films and curricula have “reached over 2 million students” and “are being used in over 5,000 schools in fifty U.S. states.”
Since founding the Representation Project in 2011, Siebel Newsom has received more than $1.9 million in compensation from the nonprofit organization, according to a review of federal tax records. Her separately owned film production company, Girls Club Entertainment, has collected about $2.2 million in independent contracts from the nonprofit, records show.
Combined, the two streams of money total about $4.1 million flowing from the charity to Siebel Newsom personally or to entities she controls over the span of a little over a decade.
Her current annual salary is $161,250 for a 40-hour workweek, records show. Siebel Newsom earns income from both her production company and her nonprofit, according to state financial disclosures.
Jeff Tenenbaum, a nonprofit attorney with 30 years of experience advising nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations, declined to comment on Siebel Newsom’s specific case. But generally, he explained the legal framework that would apply to an arrangement like the one described in the filings.
Under federal tax-exempt organization law, he said, the “private benefit doctrine” governs whether a nonprofit’s overall activities unduly benefit any single individual — including through indirect payments to entities they own. The tax law asks whether too much benefit flows to one person or entity.
This is separate and distinct from the “private inurement” doctrine, which prohibits nonprofits from paying greater-than-fair market value compensation to insiders, including founders, and which requires that such compensation arrangements be approved by individuals with no conflicts of interest.
“Theoretically, a situation like this could raise some private benefit concerns,” Tenenbaum said, when the structure of the arrangement was described to him.
The doctrine does not prohibit all private benefit, he said, only what the federal tax code calls “impermissible” private benefit.
“There has to be too much benefit compared to the benefit to the public,” he said. Whether that threshold is crossed here, he said, would require a fuller review of the organization’s finances, contracts, and other considerations, including copyright ownership issues relating to the films produced.
An actress and documentary filmmaker, Siebel Newsom founded her production company to develop independent films with a focus on combating gender stereotypes and empowering girls and women. She serves as the company’s chief creative officer.
She has written, produced and directed five films exploring themes of inequality and traditional gender roles. Siebel Newsom is best known for her 2011 documentary “Miss Representation,” which focused on the few and narrow representations of girls and women in American media.
Tax records show that the production company owns the rights to “Miss Representation” and has licensed the film to the Representation Project for a minimum of seven years for the purpose of distributing and screening the film in public. Costs associated with film production — including the writer, director and producer fees — have been reimbursed by the Representation Project, tax filings show.
Her latest documentary, “Miss Representation: Rise Up,” examines “the rising backlash against women’s progress and the hostile landscape of technology designed to harass and, ultimately, silence women.” The film premiered this month at the Tribeca Film Festival.
In 2020, Siebel Newsom founded the California Partners Project, a nonprofit focused on improving gender equity in the workplace and the safety and well-being of children in online spaces. She does not collect compensation from the nonprofit or serve on its board.
It hosts an annual “gender equity summit” and provides resources for parents on issues such as social media safety and child mental health.
In the fall of 2024, Siebel Newsom and the California Partners Project hosted representatives from TikTok, Meta, Pinterest and other social media platforms for an event about children’s online safety. A day before the panel, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta took a more forceful tack to go after the tech industry by joining with 13 other states in a lawsuit against TikTok that accused the platform of exploiting young app users with its addictive features.
In September of 2024, the governor signed a bill to prohibit internet services and applications from providing “addictive feeds,” defined as media curated based on information gathered on or provided by the user, to minors without parental consent.
The California Partners Project also does not publicly disclose its donors in its tax filings, but much of the nonprofit’s funding appears to come from behested payments. Siebel Newsom does not receive a salary from the organization.
Since its founding, the Newsoms have steered more than $5 million to the nonprofit via behested payments, according to a review of the disclosures. While many donations to the California Partners Project come from charitable foundations, it also received hundreds of thousands from companies including Silicon Valley Bank, Pinterest and the charitable arm of Blue Shield of California.
Its biggest funder is the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, a Sonoma County tribe that operates a casino in Rohnert Park and spends heavily in state and federal elections. The tribe has given $2.3 million to the nonprofit since 2022. In June 2023, Newsom appointed tribal Chairman Greg Sarris to the University of California Board of Regents. Newsom has also supported efforts by the tribe to block a smaller tribe from building a casino in nearby Vallejo.
Blue Shield, which has reported giving $100,000 to Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit, also has a cozy relationship with her husband. The nonprofit health insurer was an early donor to Newsom’s 2018 campaign for governor and later received a $15-million no-bid contract to distribute COVID vaccines. State regulators in 2024 also signed off on the nonprofit’s request to restructure and establish a new parent corporation out of state, a move that raised alarm among healthcare advocates.
The California Partners Project did not respond to questions about its donors and spending.
California’s political watchdog commission on Thursday finalized a $31,500 fine against Gov. Gavin Newsom, alleging that the Democratic leader failed to report three dozen behested payments totaling $5.5 million mostly to support wildfire recovery by the deadline under state law.
The Political Reform Act requires elected officials to disclose payments of $5,000 or more that they solicit or direct others to give to a charitable, legislative or governmental purpose within 30 days.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission said 34 of the violations were for failing to report on time that Newsom and his staff directed outreach from companies and foundations that wanted to help after the Los Angeles wildfires to the California Fire Foundation. The nonprofit was started in 1987 by the California Professional Firefighters to support the families of fallen firefighters and communities impacted by fire.
The donations include $1 million from the Chuck Lorre Foundation and $500,000 apiece from Lockheed Martin, the Anthem Blue Cross Foundation and BlackRock, among others gifts.
The governor also failed in 2024 to report on time two behested payments, totaling $100,000 from the Schmidt Family Foundation and Schwab Charitable Funds to the Institute for Local Government, a nonprofit within the League of California Cities.
The commission said the governor reported all of the payments “prior to public discovery” or contact from its enforcement division, which it considered a mitigating factor. Newsom also signed the stipulation and agreed to the fine.
Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom’s office, said the issue involved late paperwork at a time when the governor’s staff was focused on emergency response and supporting survivors. She also underscored the fact that the reports were filed before he was contact by the FPPC.
Gallegos said the fine is unrelated to an alleged investigation into the governor and his wife by the Department of Justice, which Newsom announced this week.
Newsom alleged Monday that Trump is using the government as political weapon to target him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Newsom announced the investigation after he learned that the FBI and Internal Revenue Service asked his associates questions about nonprofits and businesses related to the couple.
The governor’s office characterized the investigation as a fishing expedition. The Trump administration declined to comment.
A source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly, said two federal probes have been going on for about a year, and that they originated not from Washington, D.C., but from conversations between whistleblowers and federal prosecutors based in Sacramento. The probes are linked to Newsom’s former chief-of-staff, Dana Williamson, and Siebel Newsom’s taxes, the source said.
The FPPC violations mark the second time Newsom has reported payments late, which increased his penalty for the new infractions. The commission fined Newsom in 2024 for failing to timely report 18 payments totaling $14.4 million.
Paula Corbin Jones’ lawyers asked a judge in Little Rock, Ark., to order President Clinton to pay nearly $500,000 in legal reimbursements after he was found in contempt of court in her sexual harassment case. Their proposal came a month after U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright found Clinton in contempt for giving intentionally false testimony about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky. Wright ordered Clinton to pay Jones’ lawyers any expenses they incurred as a result of his false testimony. In a letter to Wright, Clinton lawyer Robert S. Bennett said Clinton will “object to the amount of the claim by Ms. Jones’ attorneys.”
WASHINGTON — In the 2024 election, hundreds of social media influencers were credentialed for the first time to attend the Democratic and Republican conventions. They have been invited to holiday parties in the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, to political rallies in Texas and to events at the White House by both the Biden and Trump administrations.
The role of influencers is surging as candidates and groups across the political spectrum see their social media feeds and personas as a pathway to younger audiences and harder-to-reach groups of voters.
“You have that sense of authenticity, like a friend is talking to you,” said Emma Briant, a professor at Notre Dame University’s Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society who studies propaganda.
That’s exactly what campaigns are hoping to harness when they partner with influencers, she said.
But the nature of that partnership has come into question in California’s hotly contested gubernatorial race after it emerged that a number of content creators — some with millions of followers, others with only a handful — had taken payments from the campaign of Democratic candidate Tom Steyer and not disclosed that they were paid to create those posts.
Some popular content creators have felt the need to explain themselves to their audience. Others have questioned how common such under-the-table payments might be, since there are no disclosure requirements for paid content at the federal level and few jurisdictions have any rules mandating it.
Some campaign finance advocates are concerned that voters could increasingly be influenced by social media posts that they don’t know are sponsored.
“The problem is that it doesn’t look like an ad,” said Saurav Ghosh, a former enforcement attorney at the Federal Election Commission. “It ends up really getting people at a place where they’re not skeptical and not able to tell the difference between what’s voluntary and where the influencer is acting as a paid spokesperson.”
Ghosh is now the director of campaign finance reform at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, which has filed a petition asking the FEC to require disclaimers on paid content created by influencers.
Roughly 1 in 5 Americans said they regularly got news from social media influencers in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center, and that number was nearly double for younger adults between the ages of 18 and 29.
Working with social media creators can be an easy way for candidates to try to boost their image, particularly with a younger audience.
“If they don’t have big personalities, maybe partnering with some influencers who seem cool and fun can make you seem cool and fun also through association,” said Link Lauren, a political influencer and podcaster who served as a communications advisor for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign in 2024.
California is one of the few places that requires disclosure of sponsored social media posts, but the 2023 law that created those rules hadn’t gotten much of a workout before the issue was raised in this contest through a series of dueling complaints with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission. The commission has yet to weigh in on the various accusations.
Under the law, influencers are required to provide disclosure that a post was sponsored and say who paid for it. Political groups are required to notify paid creators of the requirement.
Even if the commission finds that violations have occurred, the penalties are not especially harsh.
Violation of the law carries no civil, criminal or administrative penalties. The FPPC can take alleged violators to court and ask a judge to force compliance. And violations can be penalized with a fine of up to $5,000 per instance.
In the gubernatorial race, the issue of compliance was raised, naturally, by a pair of influencers.
Beatrice Gomberg has built up a following of more than 180,000 followers on TikTok, where she posts under the handle antiplasticlady. Her side gig of creating nonplastic children’s cups and lunch boxes became her main gig after she lost her human resources job at Macy’s during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I started doing social media because I didn’t want to hire a marketing company,” Gomberg said.
Gomberg’s posts were initially largely focused on research related to plastic, but have become increasingly political over time. When campaigns put out the call for influencers to meet with candidates, Gomberg answered.
She interviewed Katie Porter, she met with Xavier Becerra. And it was at a Becerra event in April when she met Kaitlyn Hennessy, another influencer focused on politics.
They found that the world of online influencers can be isolating. “We stare in front of our phones,” Hennessy said. “You don’t want to see our screen time.”
As they scrolled through social media posts about the governor’s race, they found a cause to unite them.
They kept seeing videos posted by social media accounts espousing similar messages in support of Tom Steyer. Hennessy wondered at first if they were actually created by artificial intelligence.
They found that the posts seemed to be created by a network of women who, in some cases, had created several different profiles to promote a variety of products.
They pored over Steyer’s campaign disclosures and saw that the campaign listed payments to several prominent influencers — including one with the handle Zay Dante, with 1.8 million followers on TikTok — who had not disclosed creating paid content for the campaign.
The pair filed a complaint laying out their allegations, which the Steyer campaign has called “baseless.”
In the wake of their complaint, Steyer defended his campaign’s use of paid influencers, writing on Substack that his campaign believed content creators should be paid for their work and that the campaign had been transparent about disclosing those payments.
In a separate post, influencer Carlos Eduardo Espina said he had been paid $400,000 for work he has done for the Steyer campaign. Espina, who has more than 14 million followers on TikTok, is an advisor to the campaign, which was publicly announced.
“You will never see anything on my channels that I don’t believe in, or that I think goes against the best interest of my community. No one buys my opinion. But I also think it’s fair to be compensated for my work,” he wrote on Substack.
Not everyone is ready to accept payment for posts.
Lauren, the influencer who advised Kennedy’s campaign, said that while he doesn’t begrudge other influencers accepting sponsorship, he chooses not to.
“A passive viewer might think you really believe this,” he said. “I have a strong connection with my audience. I really consider them my family.”
Lauren said he favors disclosure requirements.
Briant, the propaganda researcher, said she is concerned about the possibility of foreign actors trying to influence Americans through paid posts.
In 2024, for example, federal prosecutors filed an indictment alleging that Russian state media employees had paid nearly $10 million to a Tennessee company that paid popular right-wing social media influencers to unwittingly produce pro-Russia content.
Briant said she believes that the only way to counteract increased manipulation through social media influencers is to impose harsh penalties when paid content is not disclosed.
“Ultimately, it’s a wild west at the moment if there are no repercussions for not doing it,” she said.
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SACRAMENTO — As Xavier Becerra rose to the top echelons of power in Washington and Sacramento over the last two decades, his trusted advisor Sean McCluskie joined him at every step.
The son of a Scottish immigrant, McCluskie had a reputation as a political street fighter and his gruff style complemented Becerra’s more measured, cerebral approach.
Now Becerra is under attack in California’s wide-open governor’s race after McCluskie, 57, pleaded guilty in December to stealing more than $200,000 from Becerra’s campaign account.
The charges were part of a broader scandal that implicated or brushed up against some of Sacramento’s most influential Democratic political advisors, a scheme prosecutors allege included payments, bank fraud and an FBI sting operation that swept McCluskie’s incriminating private conversations and texts into evidence.
Rivals in the California governor’s race have seized on the case to question whether Becerra, one of the front-runners in the contest to succeed outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom, is fit for office and could be swept up in the case.
“We can’t have someone who is running as a Democrat who could run into legal difficulties,” said candidate Tom Steyer, who is close to Becerra in the polls.
Becerra has not been accused of wrongdoing, and prosecutors’ court filings describe him as a victim. He told The Times that he cooperated with investigators, including appearing before the grand jury.
“Sean was as close as any staffer that I’ve ever had,” Becerra said in an interview last week, describing how McCluskie moved across the country twice to work for him.
He added that he’s “racked” his brain to understand the case involving McCluskie and his longtime political consultant, Dana Williamson, both of whom he described as “very highly accomplished people.”
Williamson, who also served as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff, was indicted in November. She had refused to cooperate with federal investigators and pleaded not guilty, but recently discussed a plea deal with prosecutors. A court hearing is set for Thursday, according to court filings.
An agreement could unearth more details about the case in the coming weeks, a possibility not lost on the Democrats and Republicans running for governor.
Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, one of the Democrats who has watched Becerra’s rapid ascent in the race, said in a CNN interview Monday that California can’t risk having Becerra in the race with the specter of the ongoing criminal case.
She acknowledged that “I do not have the facts” about the case, but said if Becerra were to finish in the top two in the June 2 primary and then be indicted by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice, a Republican ultimately could win the governor’s race in November.
“Secretary Becerra cannot and has not guaranteed or promised the people of California that he will not be named as a co-conspirator and indicted,” she said.
Other candidates, and reporters, have questioned whether Becerra had a blind spot in trusting McCluskie.
Appearing on Fox40 News last year, Becerra likened the criminal case to being “married for 20 years” and “all of a sudden you find out that your spouse has been cheating.”
According to prosecutors, McCluskie, Williamson, and another consultant skimmed $225,000 from one of Becerra’s dormant campaign accounts and funneled it to McCluskie through various entities.
McCluskie, who declined to speak to The Times, sought the money because he’d taken a pay cut after joining Becerra in Washington when Becerra became Health and Human Services secretary in 2021, according to prosecutors.
And unlike Becerra, he didn’t move full-time to D.C., and was splitting his time between the nation’s capital and California, where his family lived.
On a phone call recorded by the FBI in 2024, McCluskie talked about the scheme and told a consultant, “This money you guys are giving me is helping me fly back and forth to D.C. and live there half part time.”
Becerra, in an interview, said McCluskie never mentioned his money problems. The pair worked together when Becerra served in Congress and as California attorney general.
After President Biden appointed Becerra to lead Health and Human Services, the pair discussed the move back to D.C.
“Even before we went to HHS, we had talked about whether we wanted to do this,” Becerra said. “We both agreed, ‘Yeah, you know, it’s going to be a sacrifice. We’re going to have to make changes.’”
Former Becerra staffers told The Times that Becerra and McCluskie were such a close team that they have a hard time imagining Becerra working in government without McCluskie.
Another former staffer, Amanda Renteria, said the two men bonded over their humble immigrant backgrounds. McCluskie’s family came from Scotland and Italy; Becerra’s relatives came from Mexico.
McCluskie relished going to battle for those less fortunate, she said.
“When Becerra became A.G., [people questioned] whether or not he had the style that could really take on Trump. If you were to meet Sean, you’d be like, Oh yeah, Sean is totally ready for a fight, he’s ready to take him on.
“That was sort of a difference with Becerra. Becerra had that fight in him. Sean wore it a little bit more,” said Renteria, a political strategist.
Becerra has faced repeated questions about his financial judgment after the criminal case revealed that he agreed to pay up to $10,000 a month to Williamson and another consultant to oversee one of his dormant campaign accounts.
The consultants charged him the fee as part of the scheme to divert money to McCluskie, prosecutors allege.
At the time, Becerra, a Biden Cabinet member, was barred from involving himself in campaign matters.
Becerra defended the payments during an interview with Fox40 last year, stating, “I was told that’s the rate I would have to pay to get someone who could manage that and make sure that I don’t have to worry about [violating any federal rules].”
Campaign finance records show Becerra had never paid such a high fee for his other accounts.
Becerra told The Times that his longtime attorney Stephen Kaufman, whom he was also paying to oversee the account, didn’t flag the payments. “I would have expected him to raise issues if he thought there was something wrong,” Becerra said.
Kaufman didn’t respond to questions about the account.
Los Angeles-based political consultant Eric Hacopian told The Times that the fees are “certainly high.”
“It’s obviously something he should’ve noticed. Either he was not paying attention, or was too trusting of these people,” said Hacopian, who isn’t involved in the governor’s race. “At the end of the day, he’s the primary victim.”
At a debate last week, rival candidate Antonio Villaraigosa pounced on the payments made by Becerra, saying that the politician “has to be under suspicion because it doesn’t pass the smell.”
Danni Wang, a spokesperson for Steyer, said in a statement, “So, which is it — did Becerra know about the illegal payments and participate in the campaign’s corruption, or was he a totally incompetent manager oblivious to what was going on underneath his nose?”
Renteria, the former Becerra staffer, said the allegations against McCluskie and others are particularly surprising given Becerra’s reputation as a “straight A student.”
“Part of it broke my heart,” she said.
Jonathan Underland, a Becerra spokesperson, said Becerra “has always been consistent and clear: Every action he took was in accordance with the law.”
“What he didn’t know — and what the FBI’s own investigation goes out of its way to clarify — is that his staff cooked up a scheme designed to deceive him.”
Becerra, in an interview, repeatedly said that he relied on McCluskie. It was McCluskie, he said, who advised him to make the payments. “I trusted him to handle the accounts,” he said.
He also said he was unaware of some of the details laid out by prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Williamson and others created a “no show” job for McCluskie’s wife, Kerry MacKay, to do work for the consultants.
MacKay never was paid, however, and the money went to an account controlled by McCluskie. MacKay, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, was not charged.
McCluskie’s plea agreement states that he told Becerra about his wife’s job with the consultants, though he didn’t tell the politician that his wife wouldn’t actually be doing any work.
Becerra, in an interview, said he didn’t recall McCluskie informing him about his wife’s work.
McCluskie’s sentencing is scheduled for June 4, two days after the primary.