Dana Williamson, a former chief of staff to Governor Gavin Newsom and one of the state’s most connected Democratic consultants, admitted in federal court Thursday that she took part in a scheme to steal from a dormant campaign account belonging to her former client, ex-Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. The guilty plea to conspiracy to commit bank fraud—along with two other charges—came as Becerra’s rivals in the tight race for governor seized on the scandal at a televised debate the same night.
According to the plea agreement, Williamson and Sean McCluskie, a longtime aide who became Becerra’s chief of staff in Washington, devised a plan to redirect money from one of Becerra’s inactive state campaign committees. The purpose, prosecutors said, was to pad McCluskie’s salary after he took the federal post. Court records show that $225,000 was moved from the account, and McCluskie pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, agreeing to repay the full amount.
McGregor Scott, Williamson’s defense attorney, told reporters after the hearing that McCluskie conceived the idea because he was in financial trouble and that Williamson participated only to help a friend. “She was simply trying to help a friend in a pinch as best she could,” Scott said. Sentencing guidelines suggest a prison term of no more than three years, he added, though the bank fraud charge carries a statutory maximum of 30 years and a $1 million fine.
Becerra, who served as California attorney general before President Joe Biden appointed him to lead HHS, has not been accused of any crime. At the debate Thursday night, he pushed back against opponents who cited the guilty plea as evidence of unfitness, telling them, “Accept the facts.” In November, after the initial charges were filed, Becerra called the disclosure that a trusted adviser had been accused of impropriety “a gut punch.”
The criminal case extends beyond the campaign-theft scheme. A federal indictment returned earlier accused Williamson of filing fraudulent tax returns from 2021 to 2023, claiming more than $1 million in business deductions for personal spending. The items included luxury handbags, jewelry, private jet travel, vacations in Mexico, a home HVAC system, and hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to relatives for what prosecutors described as fake jobs. Williamson did not enter a plea to those allegations Thursday; the indictment remains pending on the tax-related counts.
Newsom, for whom Williamson served as chief of staff after running Becerra’s 2018 attorney general campaign and working as a cabinet secretary for former Gov. Jerry Brown, has not been implicated in the matter. Williamson’s political career spanned years of influential roles inside California Democratic circles, and her once-rising reputation now confronts a potential prison term and the separate tax fraud charges.