Democrat insider Alexis Podesta, a 45-year-old Sacramento consultant and Newsom appointee - no known relation to John Podesta - secretly taped conversations for the FBI as early as June 2024, while Joe Biden was still in the White House, according to McGregor Scott, the former US attorney now representing Dana Williamson. Williamson, 53, ran Newsom's office as chief of staff until late 2024; in May she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and lying to federal agents.

Federal prosecutors accused Williamson and others of orchestrating a scheme to siphon roughly $225,000 from a dormant campaign account which belonged to former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra -disguising the payments as legitimate consulting fees while routing the money to benefit Becerra's former chief of staff, Sean McCluskie. According to Podesta's attorney, she was placed in charge of overseeing the account in question - but did not know the payments were improper.

Becerra is now the Democratic nominee to succeed Newsom as governor. 

"Alexis wore a wire, and Dana did not," said Williamson's lawyer and former US attorney for the Eastern District of California, McGregor Scott. 

"A lot of people received letters essentially informing us that there were certain periods of time where the FBI was given access to follow phone calls," said assemblymember Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), who said he was among those who received a letter even though he had never spoken with either Podesta or Williamson. 

"I don't know how these investigations work, but it sounds like they cast a pretty broad net across the Capitol community to see what they could find." 

A separate source with knowledge of the matter said they knew of four Sacramento insiders who also received FBI notifications confirming they had been recorded.

One recipient told the source: "Dude, I got this f—ing letter. I never even met with Dana Williamson!"

"Their curiosity was that they never even met with Dana Williamson, so they were wondering what this is all about," the source said.

"And now you have the answer." -NY Post

News of the wire comes just over two weeks after Newsom claimed that the Trump administration is punishing him because he may run for president in 2028.