Press Sec for Newsom's controller admits in OMG undercover recording that fraud is 'EVERYWHERE' in California

A new undercover video released by the O’Keefe Media Group on Tuesday has shown the press secretary for California’s state controller saying that audits are not getting done because the office lacks staff, and admitting that there’s fraud "everywhere" in the state.

An undercover reporter asked Bismarck Obando, the press secretary for State Controller Malia Cohen, why the office was not auditing state agencies more aggressively, he said that the office has done "some of them that are required," but said that in order to be "more proactive," the office needs more staff to do it. "Instead of funding us, they cut us. They keep cutting our auditing teams."

He said at the state agency level, "none of them want us to go in there and audit them." He said that if the office had the funding and staffing levels, they could perform those audits. However, "the legislation hasn’t given them to us because they don’t want to find out what the deal is."

Obando was asked by an undercover reporter whether he believes there’s fraud going on in the state of California, to which he replied, "Everywhere," such as "cities, counties, special districts, hospitals, insurance companies."

He later said there "100 percent" was fraud in the state when asked if he thought there was "genuine fraud" in California. He said, "I mean, we’re like the fourth-biggest economy in the entire world. So yes, there’s money to be found."

He said California is able to get away with the fraud because of the lack of audits as well as "spending money, overspending money, no one accounting for money. But audits are important."

He said that even if fraud is caught in the state, there is not much that can be done. "People get fired," he said, "but there’s not much you can do because you can’t really track the money. Once you catch the debit out, what are you going to do with it?"

James O’Keefe, recounting his group’s latest reporting on the "homeless industrial complex," including homeless people being paid cash to fraudulently fill out petitions, said, "They can’t conduct the audits because they don’t have the resources. Well, they have a lot of resources. Fraud is happening. Fraud is very real. Overspending is happening. We've just shown you. We've taken you through the homeless industrial complex, which is the snowflake on top of the iceberg. Money is not being properly accounted for, and the audits meant to expose it are by the State Controller's own admission.”

Obando was also asked about the homeless crisis California has been facing, and what the state plans to do to address it. He said, "See, the thing is, there’s no statewide homelessness plan." He said the state has created a new homelessness agency; however, that agency would mainly manage contracts instead of directly addressing the issue. "There's not a plan for how we’re going to fix this."