Part 125: “Democracy Dies in Darkness” – Political Corruption and Media Scandals

Published October 30, 2024. Updated November 5, 2024.

Oct 31, 2024

Photo of attendees at Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday October 29, there to protest against so-called renovictions by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

“Democracy Dies in Darkness,” the phrase popularized by legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, was controversially adopted by the newspaper and unveiled of all places on Snapchat, a social media platform in 2017. Journalism coverage this week has been dominated by news of the newspapers failure to endorse Kamala Harris for President of the United States of America, shedding 200,000 subscribers, 8% of their subscriber base, with the Los Angeles Times following along with a more modest loss of 14,000 subscribers, according to Semafor journalist Max Tani in a series of X posts, the platform formerly known as Twitter, following up on reporting from NPR’s David Folkenfilk. According to reporting on LA Candidate Watch on X, Semafor itself is actually a rival to the LA Times, and much like Jeff Bezos at the Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong at the Times, it has the backing of right-wing billionaire Charles Koch. In the game of billionaires, business has always been rivalry.

Speculation swirled that the non-endorsements were the result of fear of a second Donald Trump administration and not simply a desire to be "independent,” as Patrick Soon-Shiong had maintained, chiding his daughter Nika Soon-Shiong for suggesting that rather it was about his youth in South Africa and opposition to the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians by Israel. The report by local outlet Spectrum News journalist Kate Cagle wasn’t quite reassuring, and neither was the correction made on the younger Soon-Shiong’s X post citing reporting from the New York Times. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris, but I don’t care to give name space to another establishment journalist. These two issues have predominated news coverage, Trump-Harris and Israel-Palestine, to such an extent that it’s almost drowned out any other issue, much less what’s happening in Los Angeles. The media machine itself just might be the greatest danger to actual democracy. Journalists from both publications pleaded for the cancellations to stop to no effect. If Donald Trump wins, it will be a reflection of our failures.

A world away in Downtown Los Angeles, I was sitting alone in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on the 5th floor in Department 45. The aging building has gray marble interiors that seem to run on forever, much like my sentences do sometimes. Here Judge Red Mel Recana was presiding, just as he has done for 40 years as the first Filipino-American to assume such a position. He began by announcing to the nearly empty courtroom, with only one attorney present, that he had a “very busy schedule” and was going to need to work “faster than Jesus.” So he did, and when he got to the lawsuit that I was there for, Gil Cedillo’s moronic lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO (LA Fed), and the two accused leakers of the LA Fed Tapes, Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez, there was a simple failure to appear by counsel for Gil Cedillo. Instead of dismissing the matter, Recana scheduled a hearing for January 15, 2025, again at 8:30 am bright and early. After I explained to the sole-present attorney why I was there, she exclaimed, “Oh, I want to know that.” Cedillo’s case number is 23STCV24442.

The courts were “swamped” as Judge Recana noted working through his bevy of hearings via videoconference with the large screens in the courtroom turned off. The court clerk had snappily demanded that I check in before I explained that I was press. Could it be that in lionizing Woodward and, to a lesser extent, his more liberal partner Carl Bernstein for breaking open the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, the assembled press corps has simply forgotten its lesson? Now don’t get me wrong, like so many others, I loved Robert Redford in All The President’s Men, the 1976 classic film following-up on the 1974 book, and Dustin Hoffman was pretty good too, such acting. The great fear I have is that our mainstream journalism establishment has become too uncritical, too accepting, that literally a source like “Deep Throat,” the late William Mark Felt Sr., would simply be ignored, much like a modern day apparition of Jesus. No wonder Recana hadn’t retired, after all, as he had told Tony Cabrera last April in recounting his legal career: "God was with me all this time. I've never wavered in my faith. It was quite an adventure, really."

Gil Cedillo wasn’t the only one who failed to appear that morning in Los Angeles. After visiting Superior Court, I headed over to the Los Angeles City Council, where new Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson now sits as Council President, and unlike the Friday prior, there was some actual business on the schedule. A new Police Commissioner nominee, the honorable Teresa Sánchez-Gordon Judge (ret.) sat to testify, recalling her work at the “Federation,” as those employed by the LA Fed call it. An obviously more capable submission than the preceding nominee lawyer Karl Thurmond, who withdrew after one round of questioning, having seemingly been a political appointee. Now don’t get me wrong, I still think Mayor Karen Bass is certainly a better selection than rival Rick Caruso, but like Kamala Harris sometimes she doesn’t always hit the high notes, in part because of her style of patronage. Indeed, this has been a frequent criticism in regards to other matters such as homelessness policy, where cronies have gotten to the front ahead of qualified candidates. Sánchez-Gordon was later approved to her groups delight.

The truth is that politics at LA City Hall is like a team sport. Those who exert political pressure effectively more often get their way, and that means showing up with one of two potent things: numbers or money. Like silver or lead, plato o plomo, as the phrase goes in Spanish, we all get to make choices. I checked with Kevin de León’s office, and his receptionist hadn’t heard the news that he was under investigation by the California Political Fair Practices Commission for an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving a food nonprofit. She suggested that he must have gotten an excuse from Harris-Dawson to not attend. So I asked Harris-Dawson on camera, live-streaming him exiting the John Ferrero Council Chambers, and he simply replied, “I’m not aware,” walking away with an annoyed look on his face. I’m not a mind reader, but Council President Harris-Dawson, presuming he gets his news like the rest of us, mostly on social media, must have seen the headline. After De León had spent so much time ingratiating himself to Harris-Dawson following the LA Fed Tapes scandal, it must have been kind of frustrating.

Even if Kevin de León wasn’t there, nor was he at the press conference with Governor Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, and Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Hilda Solis, the latter of whom is in a political fight with him over homelessness policy, at least outwardly. Newsom was coming through at last, promising $380 million more dollars countywide in spending to keep Los Angeles from going off an immediate fiscal cliff on this key front. Newsom wouldn’t answer whether he supports LA County Measure A, saying he simply relied on voters in regards to backing local measures. Bass looked pleased, and the day went on in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is dominated by not just two, but seemingly three political wings. The upstart Democratic Socialists of America—Los Angeles backed leftists who have gained a foothold in matters, the moderate-conservative-establishment Democrats who’ve long-controlled things, and the rightists of Carso, who switched from being a Republican to an Independent and then to a Democrat just before failing to win his attempt at becoming Mayor is a reasonable take. The week before Kevin de León, who fits into the middle group with pull from the MAGA crowd for having been judged a racist because of the LA Fed Tapes, a place where he never wants to be, had walked across the Council Chambers tellingly pointing his finger at me. What Kevin de León knows is what so many in the Los Angeles press have been unwilling to accept, that I in in fact have been on the true and accurate path since August 2022, when I reported suspicions that an imminent audio-leak scandal was about to hit Los Angeles like a broom moves away a pigeon.

Whistleblowing isn’t quite what it used to be, even as it’s a driver of news on so many fronts. People are always suspicious of a claim that isn’t on videotape, isn’t recorded, and hasn’t been proven in a court of law, but even sometimes mistakes are made in that forum. The source of the leaked LA Fed Tapes isn’t the DSA-LA, as Cedillo and De León have claimed; rather, it’s the rightists under Caruso; in fact, Caruso himself seems likely to have known what his people were up to, too much like Richard Nixon. We just haven’t proved it yet. So even as the District Attorney’s office stalls on answering the allegation made by an attorney for Santos Leon, the accused former Director of Finance at the LA Fed, that Cedillo and De León went to District Attorney George Gascón to pressure him to find digital evidence.

The probable reason seems to likely have been deliberately planted to deflect away from the true source, Caruso’s political operation, and the man that I reported, USC Senior Vice President Sam Garrison as I’ve long stated. Despite all the ink spilled after the scandal, the Los Angeles Times, which instead of profiling Garrison for speaking with De León before the meeting instead chose to hassle African-American Los Angeles Sentinel publisher Danny Bakewell for having spoken with former Council President Nury Martinez.

The October 10, 2022 story wasn’t included in the Times submissions to the Pulitzer Prizes for which it would win in the Breaking News category. “On a cloudy Saturday afternoon in Crenshaw, Danny Bakewell Sr.’s name is almost inescapable,” the lede went before analyzing: “Yet relatively unexamined in the maelstrom has been Martinez’s brief references to Bakewell, a high-profile leader among Black Angelenos, real estate developer and the executive publisher and owner of the Los Angeles Sentinel, the long-running Black newspaper.” While the paper was focused on the wrong person, the right people to be looking at in the transcript were seemingly slipping under the radar, Sam Garrison and Jim Garrison, both equally on the lips of Kevin de León and Nury Martinez respectively. Even Kevin de León had to respect the audacity it took to try to disrupt this scheming, with it’s deep ties to money, power, and politics in the city. A simple investigation would have revealed more red flags than a dirty soccer match, and yet their names didn’t appear in publication until the Times published it’s transcription in November.

To be fair, the questionable story wasn’t included in Los Angeles Times submission. Assuredly though the leak was good for business, as one media executive recently suggested to be after I stated that I had published De León and Cedillo’s court case against the two leakers. The truly strange part is that this doesn’t seem to be the only manufactured scandal in Los Angeles. Also present at City Council for a ceremony honoring an LAPD officer for the loss of her infant child, Commander Lillian Carranza could be seen in Council Chambers. The duo are being sued by their own union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL).

Carranza has countered with a demurrer alleging the lawsuit is defective, and an anti-SLAPP motion, which stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Reina denies having ever taken the LAPPL’s internal survey at all, having normally received their emails, as did Carranza who doesn’t deny completing their survey, instead claiming that she did so out of concern over basic issues such as “vehicles with high mileage and old stations with leaking roofs” and that she “felt that it was important that these complaints be relayed so that something can be done to address these problems.” The LAPPL has argued that this was somehow computer hacking, which it obviously isn’t, even demanding that State Attorney General Rob Bonta investigate. Carranza and Reina deny any “conspiracy” to undermine the LAPPL.

The lawsuit is another obvious overreach, an attempt to politicize the legal system, and to in turn effectively use it against whistleblowers such as Carranza and upstanding officers such as Reina. Hearings have been scheduled on November 18, December 18, and January 31, 2025 in regards to these motions before Judge Bruce Iwasaki. The LAPPL much like Gil Cedillo is wasting time in court, burning their own war chest to attack critics just as they’ve backed De León for re-election. As members of the LAPD, both Carranza and Reina are required to get their benefits through the union, to suggest that they unlawfully engaged in computer hacking in “Violation of California Penal Code section 502” is reckless and irresponsible. As Carranza’s filing states, “Clearly, there are no allegations that Commander Carranza did anything to break into a computer system or anything to obtain or alter information.” The case number is 24STCV19837. Carranza and Reina have separate counsels to defend themselves from the LAPPL.

The office of District Attorney George Gascón did not immediately return a request for comment on if they would re-investigate the leak of the LA Fed Tapes, which most certainly appears to have been actual computer hacking. According to an LAPD spokesman, their investigation is now closed as it didn’t result in prosecutions. All I could do is to suggest to the DA’s office that if the LAPD and State Attorney General’s office, which per the filings of Santos Leon did more than just investigate whether Nury Martinez, Kevin de León, Gil Cedillo, and former President Ron Herrera had an unlawful conversation about redistricting, including seizing electronic devices before LAPD searched their home, that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles under E. Martin Estrada should be involved to determine the source of the illegal recordings. Estrada recently boasted on X that his office had hired “eight new AUSA’s to the office!” Kevin de León was back in City Council on Wednesday October 30. The legacy of the LA Fed Tapes in Los Angeles just might not be that racism is wrong, but rather than politics, even ahead of the justice system, even more than money, is the most dominant force.

People forget that the Watergate break-in was disrupted by a security guard. Bob Woodward and Leonard Bernstein are old men now, even as Woodward publishes books on the tragedy of American foreign policy, rightfully scorning the ravages of war, which sacrifices the young. Our “Democracy Dies in Darkness” because it means government secrecy. The situation we have now in Los Angeles is exactly that, a private investigation report allegedly being used criminal evidence, which in turns remains secret as an investigatory record, even as the charges it precipitated are dismissed for lack of evidence. The break-ins of the 21st century don’t always involve physical offices, but rather computer systems.

Will Los Angeles’s greatest political crime go unsolved simply because we lack faith in democracy and law? Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo have repeatedly attacked these basic premises even as they have championed their own reputations, both men are brazen liars. Who sent them to pressure District Attorney Gascón, who most assuredly seems likely to lose re-election to challenger Nathan Hochman, who has campaigned on a law and order campaign. The office of City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto didn’t respond to a follow-up request for comment on the quotes in the Los Angeles Times from De León and Cedillo attacking her, “shirked her duty as a criminal prosecutor,” cried De León, an “incredible injustice” whined Cedillo. In the afternoon, the Public Safety Committee met to consider the nomination of Jim McDonnell to be Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, it passed 4-1 with Hugo Soto-Martinez dissenting. McDonnell was criticized over his past leadership of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in regards to immigration and his response to deputy gangs.

Link: Washington Post sells itself to readership with new slogan

Link: Max Tani Twitter Post RE: LA Times Losses

Link: Over 200,000 subscribers flee 'Washington Post' after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

Link: LA Candidate Watch Twitter Post RE: Semafor

Link: Exclusive: LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong responds to backlash over paper's non endorsement for president

Link: Nikas Soon-Shiong Twitter Post RE: Non-Endorsement

Link: A look at 40-year career of Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana, first Filipino American judge in US

Link: Governor Newsom announces local accountability, transparency rules for new round of homeless funding

Link: Who is Danny Bakewell, the Black L.A. power broker named in the Nury Martinez audio?

Link: Inside the room: The entire L.A. City Council racist audio leak, annotated by our experts

Link: The 2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Breaking News Reporting

Link: LAPD union sues police commander over allegations of fraud and unlawful computer data access