Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking California taxpayers for another $1 million to fund legal defense against congressional probes into rampant Medi-Cal fraud — bringing the total billed to the public for his administration's legal troubles to $2.25 million, according to the New York Post.
The money flows through the Department of Finance from a $25 million pot state lawmakers approved for legal fights with the Trump administration. This latest request covers legal responses to federal scrutiny of fraudulent billing in government-funded healthcare, hospice fraud, and emergency coverage provided to illegal immigrants — the very programs where hundreds of millions have already been lost to fraud under Newsom's watch.
Assemblymember David Tangipa (R-Fresno) didn't mince words: "Newsom might want to get Medi-Cal under control before he starts measuring the drapes anywhere else. California lost hundreds of millions to hospice fraud, and now taxpayers are being forced to pay a million-dollar legal bill to defend the mess."
The House Oversight Committee launched its investigation in March, demanding records on California's licensing and oversight of hospice providers. Federal lawmakers say state officials failed to properly monitor operators who were falsely billing Medicare for patients who were not terminally ill and registering multiple hospices at the same Los Angeles-area addresses.
Newsom's office insists the state is cooperating. Spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo called the investigations a partisan campaign targeting "states that did not vote for the President," while insisting: "We take fraud very seriously — and we believe that careful oversight and accessible critical care are not mutually exclusive."
H.D. Palmer of the Department of Finance framed it more bluntly: "This appropriation to multiple state agencies is a reflection of the legal fishing expeditions that Washington has waged against California under this administration and this Congress."
Translation: the governor's team calls oversight a fishing expedition, then asks the public to fund the boat.
The pattern is clear. The previous allocations — $500,000 in September 2025 and $750,000 in April — didn't solve the problem. Now another million, and the fraud questions remain. The congressional probe may intensify in Newsom's final months, as both he and his wife face separate Department of Justice investigations.
Meanwhile, Newsom is still playing the long game on a presidential run. Breitbart reported that Newsom told CNN's Jake Tapper he would not run in 2028 if Kamala Harris enters the race, calling a primary between the two Californians "mutually assured destruction" and "a gift from God for everybody else." He trails Harris badly in early polling — a Harvard-Harris survey in April found 50 percent of Democrats prefer Harris compared to 22 percent for Newsom.
The question neither outlet pressed: who profited from the fraud Newsom is spending public money to litigate around? Hundreds of millions vanished into fake hospice billing while state regulators looked the other way. Now the governor wants the same taxpayers who funded the fraud to fund his defense against questions about it.
The $25 million legal defense slush fund was sold as protection against federal overreach. In practice, it's becoming a revolving line of credit for an administration that would rather lawyer up than answer for what happened on its watch.
