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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.”

BREAKINGBREAKING,

The successful vote means the long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Trump to sign into law.

The House of Representatives has passed a federal government spending package, clearing the final hurdle and bringing an end to the longest government shutdown in United States history – at least for now.

In a vote held late on Wednesday evening in the Republican-held House, the bill was backed by 222 lawmakers – including six Democrats – while 209 voted against it, including two Republicans.

The long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

On Monday night, the upper chamber of Congress had approved the spending package by a vote of 60 to 40 to fund the US government through January 30, reinstating pay to hundreds of thousands of federal workers after six gruelling weeks.

All but essential government services had ground to a halt amid the shutdown.

The breakthrough came following negotiations last weekend that saw seven Democrats and one independent agree to back the updated spending package and end the shutdown, which entered its 42nd day on Tuesday.

Crucially, however, the deal has not resolved one of the shutdown’s most central issues – healthcare subsidies for 24 million Americans under the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration planned to cut.

For weeks, Democrats repeatedly blocked the bill’s passage in Congress, saying the measure was necessary to force the government to address escalating healthcare costs for low-income Americans.

Shortly before Wednesday’s vote, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson accused his Democratic colleagues of using American citizens as “leverage” in their “political game”, as he denounced them for preventing the resolution’s passage in September.

“Since that time, Senate Democrats have voted 14 times to close the government. Republicans have voted a collective 15 times to open the government for the people, and the Democrats voted that many times to close it,” he said.

As part of the deal breaking the impasse, Senate Republicans agreed to hold a vote on the issue by December, raising fears there could be another shutdown in January.

The agreement had also provoked anger among Democrats, who preferred to keep holding out, including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker – considered a contender for the 2028 presidential election – who called it an “empty promise” earlier this week.

David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, also described the agreement as “just a stopgap arrangement”.

“The deal that they’ve reached means most of the government will shut down again in January if they can’t come to another agreement,” he told Al Jazeera earlier this week.

Democrats who supported the deal were Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin from Illinois, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jackie Rosen from Nevada, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire, and Tim Kaine from Virginia.

Angus King, an independent from Maine, also backed the deal.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow shortly.