Los Angeles County officials have repeatedly warned the public to be wary of scammers who show up after a disaster and start grifting, taking advantage of people’s generosity by asking for donations for victims, but in fact benefiting themselves.
They could have been talking about Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The sitting governor of the state of California just set up a website called CaliforniaFireFacts.com. On Saturday, he posted on his personal account on X, “A lot of misinformation out there. Just launched a new site to ensure the public has access to fact-based data around the Southern CA wildfires.”
But this is not an official state website. It’s paid for by “Newsom for California,” which appears to be the governor’s still-active 2022 campaign account. The campaign committee formally called “Newsom for California Governor 2022” had an ending cash balance of more than $3.2 million as of June 30, according to the most recent campaign finance report filed with the Secretary of State.
The “fact-based” (which is not quite the same as “factual”) data has a distinct campaign flavor. “Broadly, there is no water shortage in Southern California right now, despite Trump’s claims that he would open some imaginary spigot,” the site states.
Newsom’s California Fire Facts site does more than play verbal ping-pong with his critics. It features a dramatic photo of Newsom in action on a smoky Southern California street, next to a prominent orange button labeled, “Donate to Cal Fire Foundation.”
But the link doesn’t go to the Cal Fire Foundation website. Outrageously, it directs visitors to a page labeled “Campaign for Democracy” that features a glamour shot of Newsom holding a microphone, shirt sleeves rolled up, looking tanned, rested and ready for his next office.
Campaign for Democracy is Newsom’s federal political action committee.
It gets worse.
Below the Campaign for Democracy logo is a donation form that reads, “Your contribution will benefit California Fire Foundation,” but first the money goes to ActBlue Charities, Inc., which processes and disburses the funds after collecting a 3.95% transaction fee.
ActBlue and its affiliated ActBlue Charities are fundraising platforms that collect donor data. According to the platforms’ privacy policy, the data may be shared with “entities that we’ve partnered with” or used to “provide you with more relevant choices, experience, or communications.”
That means the people who are tricked into donating to the California Fire Foundation through Newsom’s campaign website will be entered into ActBlue’s database, where fundraising solicitations for future campaigns can be pushed to them.
This is reprehensible, and if it’s not illegal, it ought to be.
It’s bad enough that Newsom’s campaign committee wraps itself in the California Fire Foundation to fool donors, but ActBlue has been under investigation since December 2023 for alleged fraud. In August, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that the fundraising platform had agreed to increase security by requiring card verification values (CVV) on electronic payments. Charity Navigator has slapped a “Proceed with caution” label on ActBlue Charities, warning of “Reported other material investigation.”
But so far no complaints from the California Fire Foundation, which is owned and operated by the California Professional Firefighters, the union that represents firefighters employed by the state. The budget and the labor contracts are under the governor’s control.
Individuals, businesses and organizations that wish to donate to the California Fire Foundation can do so directly by going to cafirefoundation.org.