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Republican congressional candidate and CAL DOGE Director Jenny Rae Le Roux is slamming Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta for failing to crack down on widespread fraud after her watchdog group uncovered multiple cases she says state leaders ignored.
“Every day is opposite day when it comes to Gavin Newsom and Rob Bonta,” Le Roux told Digital. “Whatever they say, I generally believe the exact opposite is true and so when Gavin Newsom says that fraud is under control, what that means is that either he’s in on it or unwilling to do anything about it.”
“They are either unwilling to do anything or they are not wanting to do it and they’re just trying to spin what they are already doing in that way,” she added.
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN SLAMS STATE’S HANDLING OF HOSPICE FRAUD AS SHE LOOKS TO FLIP BLUE SEAT
California Gov. Gavin Newsom takes questions from the media after announcing the state is suing the White House to restore SNAP funding before the cutoff during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. (REUTERS/Fred Greaves)
California has been at the center of the national fraud spotlight in recent months as the Trump administration has sent resources to the state to look into various accusations of fraud ranging from healthcare to homelessness to nonprofit organizations.
The CEO of a California hospice advocacy group told congressional lawmakers Tuesday that fraud in the industry is flourishing across the state, questioning how numerous fraudulent providers can continue to operate under the nose of regulators.
“You’d be amazed at how many hospices… the door you can walk up to in California and there is nobody there. Five months’ worth of mail that you can see stacked… nobody’s there,” Sheila Clark, the president and CEO of the California Hospice and Palliative Care Association (CHAPCA), said. “And that passed a survey. How did that happen?”
Le Roux said her group uncovered what she described as “intentional fraud” in Sacramento, alleging funds are being redirected toward “Democrat base-building.” Cal DOGE is a group that works to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in California that was launched in early 2026 by Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton.
The group says it has uncovered almost $700 million in waste, fraud, and abuse since its founding.
“We have been more effective with a group of volunteers in the last 10 weeks than Gavin Newsom and Rob Bonta have since they’ve been in office,” Le Roux said.
She added Bonta’s office wasted resources on legal battles against the Trump administration instead of focusing on fraud patterns that her group identified using artificial intelligence and financial data.
“Rob Bonta’s office billed over 150,000 hours a year going after President Trump and the Trump administration’s policies that equates to almost 200 lawyers times when you extrapolate it out over an entire year, which is one-sixth of his entire office, and larger than the DOJ office that’s actually doing something in California,” she said.
Le Roux, a cousin of Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, launched her campaign in March and is running in the GOP primary for California’s 47th Congressional District with a focus on combating fraud.
“It doesn’t just happen, it’s the normal way of operating, which is why, again, the people who’ve been perpetrating the fraud and leading the charge on it, Newsom and Bonta, can’t be the ones that are actually going to investigate it,” she said.
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In one example, she said her group uncovered a case where $370 million in cannabis tax revenue was routed through an intermediary and split into smaller grants that went to unrelated programs. She pointed to systemic flaws, including limited federal prosecution for funds “mostly under $1 million.”
“There is no oversight, not one report that is required to explain where the money is spent,” she said.
As a result, she said that a lack of oversight has contributed to an estimated $80 billion annually in “fraud, waste, or gross overpayments,” arguing the problem is systematic.
Amid recent hospice fraud allegations, Le Roux said stronger oversight could have prevented the issue and curbed the fraud. Newsom’s office pushed back, saying enforcement falls to the federal government.
“These hospice agencies that we are now in the process of shutting down were licensed by the state of California,” she said. “They should have never been opened. Every piece of oversight that the state of California should have been administrating had not been happening and so this is a California issue.”
She said her group is pressuring officials to prosecute fraud.
“Newsom is trying to take credit for doing nothing instead of actually becoming a part of reform in our state, which is by the way, what not just Republicans, but independents and Democrats want desperately,” she said.
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the state is suing the White House to restore SNAP funding before the cutoff during a news conference in Sacramento. (Fred Greaves/Reuters)
However, she emphasized fraud extends beyond California.
“When money flows into California and nothing is checked, that is an American problem, not a California problem,” she said.
Digital reached out to the offices of Newsom and Bonta for comment.
Newsom’s office has responded to critics in general in recent weeks by saying the state is “leading the nation in preventing fraud.”
“Since @CAGovernor Gavin Newsom took office: — $125 billion+ in fraud STOPPED — 1,200+ criminals ARRESTED — 83% reduction in EBT fraud in one year — New hospice licenses BANNED beginning in 2022,” Newsom’s press office posted on X last month.
