California has been rocked by multiple fraud scandals in recent months, including a bombshell report alleging that the state has lost at least $180 billion to fraud since Governor Gavin Newsom took office. But instead of going after the fraudsters, Golden State Democrats are targeting the journalists who are exposing it.
That’s the upshot of Assembly Bill 2624, now making its way through the California legislature. The bill would specifically expand confidentiality protections for immigration support providers and others by shielding their addresses and penalizing those who publish their image online. Democrats are pitching it as a privacy bill, but its transparent purpose is to punish anyone who exposes fraud in California’s expansive welfare programs.
AB 2624 is sponsored by Democrat Assemblymember Mia Bonta – the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Republican critics contend that she is criminalizing journalism and protecting politically connected welfare fraudsters from public scrutiny.
If AB 2624 is signed into law, it authorizes California officials to conceal information about any person who has provided “designated immigration support services,” including health care services, legal assistance, daycare, and other services. The bill also would prohibit private citizens from posting images, personal information, or addresses associated with any program on social media. Violations could include criminal penalties, a $10,000 fine, or up to one year in jail. Those who notify the state of violations could be awarded up to $4,000.
Republicans quickly nicknamed the bill the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.” Shirley is a 24-year-old conservative YouTuber and independent journalist who first rose to prominence after exposing widespread fraud earlier this year in Somali daycare facilities in Minnesota. His viral videos revealed empty buildings registered as daycares that were collecting public money for children who don’t exist.
Shirley next turned to California for his encore act. He began posting videos showing alleged hospice, healthcare, and NGO-related fraud. Shirley’s video on hospice fraud in particular helped spark a national news cycle that exposed so much corruption that even Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta were forced to acknowledge the problem and launch belated efforts to combat it just to save face.
Nonetheless, Newson’s office responded on X to Shirley’s investigative videos by depicting him as a creep stalking daycare centers looking for children. For Democrats, ridicule is often easier than rebuttal. Their rush to mock Shirley instead of refuting his claims reveals that progressives see his reporting as a genuine threat.
Republican California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio has blasted AB 2624 as an attack on transparency and said flatly that “it criminalizes citizen investigative journalists who take video and expose fraud.” DeMaio also argued that Democrats are trying to “silence citizen journalists and shield taxpayer-funded organizations from public scrutiny.”
Mia Bonta insists the bill is being mischaracterized by opponents. At an early April committee hearing, she claimed that immigrant-service workers are facing targeted harassment, doxxing, and death threats. DeMaio confronted Bonta at the hearing and warned of other consequences if the bill was to become law. “You do not provide an exemption for journalists… [posting videos] of ninety fake hospices, and Mr. Shirley had sixty fake ‘learning’ centers for the Somali community in Minnesota,” he pointed out.
DeMaio continued, “This is not about protecting people from violence. This is about threatening and intimidating people who are trying to shine a light on bad behavior. If you have nothing to hide, why fear the transparency?”
Bonta responded in the committee hearing with denial and deflection. Later, when public backlash increased, she told local media, “If MAGA can’t tell the difference between journalism and doxing that’s on them… This bill does not infringe on the First Amendment.”
Californians have good reason to worry that Democrats care more about silencing watchdogs than rooting out rampant fraud.
This is all unfolding as Vice President J.D. Vance chairs the Trump administration’s new Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, established last month. Vance has claimed that fraud uncovered in the Minneapolis area has “probably been $19 billion at least,” while the Associated Press reported that the administration’s broader Minnesota crackdown centered on allegations involving billions in state and federal programs and a temporary pause on $259.5 million in Medicaid funding.
Meanwhile, Vance’s task force says it has flagged nearly $6.3 billion in federal contracts going to potentially fraudulent businesses. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also announced last month that federal officials in Los Angeles uncovered extensive hospice fraud “run by Russian mobsters,” that cost taxpayers more than $100 million.
Kennedy told a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week that they “shut down 500 hospices in Los Angeles, and incidentally we haven’t had one call from Congress or anybody else complaining because clearly these were fraudulent.”
Even allowing for politics and unresolved allegations, the scope and scale of fraud under discussion is enormous.
Shirley spoke to Fox News over the weekend contrasting the hostility he is receiving from California Democrat state legislators with the response he gets from normal Americans. “The majority of the public are very thankful,” he said, adding that in Sacramento “so many people were saying thank you,” even while “the people inside the building all hate me because I’m exposing the corruption.”
That may be the clearest summary of this entire situation. The politicians seeking to protect the racket despise Shirley, while the Americans who pay the bills are expressing sincere gratitude.
California Democrats had a choice. They could have welcomed scrutiny, audited the programs in question, and tried to prove Shirley’s accusations wrong. Instead, they are advancing a bill that will punish those like him who expose abuse tied to public money.
Honest government does not fear a camera in a hallway. Honest lawmakers do not need vague standards and legal penalties to protect themselves from questions. If Democrats want to restore trust, they should stop treating independent journalists like criminals and start confronting the fraudsters instead.
W.J. Lee has served in the White House, NASA, on multiple campaigns, and in nearly all levels of government.
