Steve Hilton has built a big part of his campaign for California governor on videos from two men who call themselves independent journalists. New campaign filings show his campaign was paying both of them — and neither said so while they promoted him.
The Sacramento Bee reported on October 2 that Hilton's campaign paid:
- $60,383.55 to Muckraker Media, the company of Anthony Rubin, for "unspecified campaign consultant work and travel expenses."
- $12,000 to Jorge Ventura, also for unspecified campaign consultant work.
That's more than $72,000 to two people who presented themselves to the public as reporters.
"He said he had not"
Rubin and Ventura produce videos about Xavier Becerra's time running the federal Health and Human Services department, when thousands of migrant children were placed with sponsors. Both spoke at a news conference Hilton hosted to spotlight those videos and the people interviewed in them.
When the Fresno Bee asked Hilton whether he had paid Rubin for the footage featured at that event, Hilton said he had not, according to the Bee.
His campaign had paid Rubin's company $60,383.55. Asked about the contradiction, Hilton's spokesperson, Hector Barajas, told the Sacramento Bee that Hilton meant the campaign hadn't paid Rubin for the substance of his reporting, which began before the campaign did. Barajas also said the two men "were paid to look for (the whistleblowers) and film (them)."
So the campaign's own explanation is that it paid them to find the people and film them — the footage Hilton was asked about.
No disclosure, on stage or online
The Bee reports Hilton, Rubin and Ventura did not disclose the payments at the August 5 news conference or in social media posts about it. Ventura posted nearly two dozen times praising Hilton or attacking Becerra.
Barajas said influencers had been told to add disclaimers to campaign posts — after the Sacramento Bee started asking questions.
Hennessy, one of the two Becerra supporters who filed the complaint described below, told the Bee a paid promoter is "more valuable if people don't think they're paid to post on behalf of a campaign." That's the whole reason disclosure rules exist: so voters know when an ad is an ad.
The complaint
The two Becerra supporters, Beatrice Gomberg and Kaitlyn Hennessy, have filed a complaint with California's Fair Political Practices Commission over the campaign's paid online promoters. They're partisans — they've also filed complaints against other candidates, and regulators cleared one of them, Tom Steyer, earlier this month.
But the dollar figures above aren't their allegations. They're from Hilton's own campaign finance filings. Barajas confirmed what the two were paid for. And the gap between saying he hadn't paid Rubin for that footage and a $60,383 payment came from Hilton himself.
Hilton's response to the complaint was to call Becerra an "appalling man" and accuse him of "lashing out at the investigative journalists" — the same journalists his campaign was paying.
A campaign that changes its story
This is not the first time Hilton has said one thing and then another. During the primary, he said he'd hand a California doctor over to Louisiana for prescribing abortion pills — then, once he needed general-election votes, said he wouldn't.
What the filings show
Steve Hilton's campaign paid Anthony Rubin's company $60,383.55 and Jorge Ventura $12,000 while both promoted him as independent journalists, without disclosing the payments at his August news conference or in their posts. Hilton told the Fresno Bee he had not paid Rubin for the footage he featured; his spokesperson later said the pair were paid to find and film the people in it. Influencers were told to add disclaimers only after the Sacramento Bee asked.
Source
- Becerra backers accuse Hilton campaign of hiding payments to influencers — The Sacramento Bee
