Dozens of players on the California political scene have received letters from the FBI, letting them know the agency had been listening to their telephone calls and reading their text messages. The surveillance was part of an investigation that led to the arrest of several people on corruption charges, including a former top aide to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
FBI letters
The FBI sent letters to anyone whose communications were intercepted.
“It’s required by the law and the Constitution,” Timothy Edgar, professor of computer science and law at Brown University and Harvard University, told Straight Arrow News. “Basically, whenever you’re searched, you have to be notified.”
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That is laid out in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, also known as the Wiretap Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Those notifications typically go out after an investigation is complete.
“You can’t be notified while you’re being wiretapped for obvious reasons, so they wait until, basically, they’re done,” Edgar said. “And then they’ll send you a letter saying, ‘We captured your communications at some point in time.’ And that would go not just to people who are targeted, but people who are just overheard on conversations that were intercepted by the FBI on any kind of lawful wiretap.”
‘Everybody is worried’
The text of those letters suggested recipients had no reason to be concerned.
“This letter does not necessarily mean you were the target of the investigation or that any criminal action will be taken against you,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a letter obtained by The Los Angeles Times. “Rather, the purpose of this letter is to notify you that some of your communications may have been intercepted during the course of the investigation.”
Nevertheless, receiving a letter from the FBI that said you’ve been surveilled is naturally concerning. A report from The New York Times said many California lobbyists were in Maui last week for a conference, but the letters were on many of their minds.
“People are on edge,” Rob Stutzman, a longtime Republican strategist who did not receive a letter and was not involved in the case, told the Times. “There’s a lot of wondering if this is all there is to it.”
A Democratic consultant agreed.
“It sends a chill up your spine, and everybody is worried,” Steve Maviglio, who said he did not receive a letter, told the LA Times. “They can’t remember what they said to whom, about what. It could be anything. I think most people think this could be the tip of the iceberg. They are very concerned about where all these roads might lead.”
It’s unclear exactly how many letters went out, but reports said it was in the dozens. One political insider joked to the LA Times that he felt left out because he didn’t get one.
Should the recipients be concerned?
“Yes, of course,” Edgar said. “You could be charged in the future if, somehow, your conversations or other evidence shows evidence of a crime, and they want to charge you. But more likely, you were just overheard on the conversation, and that’s kind of going to be the end of it, because if you were actually going to be targeted by the FBI, you probably would have been indicted already.”
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Federal law requires the FBI to alert anyone involved in a wiretap that their communications have been intercepted.
Charges filed
Among those already indicted is Dana Williamson, a longtime Democratic political player in California and Newsom’s former chief of staff.
Newsom’s office confirmed current and former aides received letters from the FBI.
Williamson, 53, worked for Newsom from late 2022 to December 2024. She is charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and other offenses related to allegations of stealing money from dormant campaign accounts.
“These are real crimes and should be punished if proven at trial,” Edgar said.
The Williamson case involves several million dollars and could land her in prison. She has pleaded not guilty.
“They tried to play fast and loose with campaign funds,” Edgar said, “And that’s obviously corruption, assuming what is charged in these indictments is proven at trial.”
But he noted that ethics experts have voiced concerns about President Donald Trump’s administration, including over cryptocurrency and other business deals involving the president and members of his family, a Qatari plane gifted to the president, and more.
Edgar said Williamson’s case is “sort of so minor compared to some of the bigger issues around corruption that we’ve seen with the Trump administration, with people at the White House.”
Administration officials have vehemently denied any wrongdoing by Trump, his family or others in his circle.
Political ramifications
The Trump administration has targeted California with ICE raids and a National Guard deployment this year. The corruption investigation, however, is not another example of the Trump Justice Department singling out the Golden State again. The case began during former President Joe Biden’s administration.
“The Biden Justice Department can say, we go after Democrats, we go after Republicans,” Edgar said. “Our job is to serve the public. It does kind of tarnish the political establishment in California to some degree, but again, it’s kind of a lower-level, par-for-the-course kind of corruption allegations.”
For those who received letters but no charges, Edgar believes a big part of their concern is who’s in charge of the Justice Department now.
“We’ve certainly seen in the case of the Federal Reserve, Letitia James and others, that Trump is willing to blow through every norm that’s ever existed when it comes to Justice Department investigations and demand transparently vindictive prosecutions of his enemies,” Edgar said. “And that’s not what happened here, because it’s a Biden administration probe, but it is a danger when you think about the information that’s out there.”
A federal grand jury indicted Letitia James, the New York attorney general, and former FBI director James Comey after Trump used a social media post to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue criminal charges against them. A judge dismissed both cases on Monday.
Edgar said the California case only reinforces the belief by many Americans that the government is corrupt.
“They think that there’s a cozy group out there that doesn’t really care about them,” Edgar said. “And this is Exhibit A that, sure, yeah, there is. There’s an establishment, and they’re writing checks to each other and doing things that you or I couldn’t do or get away with.”
